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EVOLUTIONISM.

A SERIES OF

ILLUSTRATED CHART LECTURES

UPON THE

EVOLUTION OF ALL THINGS IN THE

UNIVERSE.

From Atoms to Worlds,

From Atoms to Souls.

CxH-

Knowledge guides us like the magnetic pole,
Ignorance forges fetters for the soul.
One leads us safely 'cross the pathless deep t
The other binds us in a slothful sleep.

'••<

OLNEY H. RICHMOND,

Grand Master of the Order of the Magi, Jurisdiction of

the United States

AUTHOR OF

"The Temple Lectures," "Religion of the Stars,'*
"The Mystic Test Book," Etc

CHICAGO.
1896.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1896, by

Olnby H. Richmond,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

• • • *
• « •

•

r*oar»

Published by

THE TEMPLE PUBLISHING COMPANY,

Chicago, III.

O. H. Richmond, Manager,

Chicago:
a. l. fyfe, printer, 334 dearborn street.

1896.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

INDEX TO LECTURES.

Paqb.
EVOLUTION OF A SYSTEM, - - 5

From an Atomic Mass to Son and Worlds.

EVOLUTION OF OUR EARTH, 22

From a Ringed Sun to a World of Vegetation.

EARTH'S EVOLUTION, ... 44

From the Carboniferous Period to the Era of Man.

THE AGE OF MAMMALS, - 67

A Descent into the Rocky Strata of our Globe.

THE AGE OF REPTILES, 84

We Dive Still Deeper into the Earth.

THROUGH COAL AND FISH, - - 96

A Journey Through the Old Red Sand Stone.

THE AGE OF MOLLUSKS, - - 108

Down Through the Great Silurian.

VIII. THE DAWN OF LIFE, 120

A Journey Through Fifty Thousand Feet of Rock.

IX. EVOLUTION OF SPECIES, - - 132

Examination of Existing Species under Development.

X. THE ASCENT OF MAN, 154

The Development of Intelligence on Earth.

XL STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT, - 186

Differentiation of Organs under Environment.

XII. MARVELS OF LIFE FORMS, - - 187

Strange and Wonderful Development of Life.

XIII. PROGRESSION UNIVERSAL, - - 202

Evolution of Fixed Principles Everywhere.

XIV. BEYOND THE PHYSICAL, - - 216

The Astral Body, or Soul, a Higher Evolution.

XV. ONWARD AND UPWARD, - - 233

The Heaven of the Future, One of Advancement.

XVI. CONCLUDING REMARKS, - - 246

INTRODUCTION.

The publication of this series of Temple
Lectures in book form was undertaken for
a purpose. My experience during the past few
years has demonstrated the fact to me that
Evolution is the one great Truth which
stands at the very threshold of all intellect-
ual advancement. The want of a knowledge
of it stultifies all attemps to understand the
Infinite truth.

I have found that nine-tenths of the per-
sons who think they understand it, do not.
Also, that the books on the subject present
grave and well-nigh insurmoutable difficulties
to the ordinary investigator. By the time
the average person has waded through 600
pages of geology and 900 pages of evolution
and "origin of species," and 350 more of
embryology, all in fine print, he has for-
gotten nine-tenths of what he has read. I
have put in months of hard work making
drawings for this book, in order to give the
average reader an opportunity to see the
fossiliferous deposits illustrated side by side
with the strata in which they are found.

I shall never receive pay for one-tenth of
the time expended in this work, but it has
been a labor of love with me, and I do not
look for pecuniary reward.

Olney H. Richmond.

LECTURE I.
£vot«tio« of a System*

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM FROM AN ATTENUATED ATOMIC MASS
TO SUN AND WORLDS.

The " Creation " Idea Untrue.— The Reign of Law.—
Infinite Diversity, vet Unity.— Molecular Vibra-
tions.— The Wonderful Ether.— The Etheric bal-
ance. — Chemical Affinity. — The "Waltz of Atoms.
—A United Family of Worlds.

scientific person can conscien-

isly put off the question: "How

that come to be?" with the old

■eotyped answer: "God made

or "God created it."

_*hat time has gone by, with the

childish conceptions which originated it ;

and the man of science of to-day answers

the question as a man of knowledge, and

does not attempt the evasion of it in any

"Santa Clause" style.

6 EVOLUTIONISM.

During the ignorant and barbaric ages of
the past, that make-shift, " God created it,"
was very convenient, especially for those
who pretended to be direct purveyors to the
people of the Almighty's wishes and orders.

That the universe, both physical and en-
ergetic, is a constant and infinite series of
cause and effect, with no possible beginning
and no ending, no limitation in bounds and
none in ultimate evolution, is a grand fact
which every new discovery only tends to
strengthen.

No scientific writer of to-day says a word
about "creation" of forms and matter, ex-
cept it be to truck to the church, and thereby
get religious patronage. No work which
tells the plain, unvarnished Truth can be
gotten into our public schools, and hardly
into most public libraries. Such institutions
are usually controlled by old fogy boards,
and men of science know this to be a fact.

Thank the stars ! The undersigned is not
obliged to cater to ignorance, and can afford
to state facts as he finds them, without fear
or favor.

EVOLUTION OF SYSTEM. 7

In starting this series of lectures on gen-
eral Evolution, I shall not look for a "begin-
ning." We can in no place put down our
stake and say, "here is the starting point."
I firmly believe that millions of sextillions
of ages ago worlds and their satellites, suns
and clusters of suns, systems and universes
of Nebulae were going through their great
periods of evolution — not the same as to-day,
for Nature possesses infinite powers of trans-
formation, but under the same general laws
as to-day and subject to the same gigantic
ever acting forces.

If we should examine a million maple
trees we would not find two alike in the en-
tire million ; but all of them would be found
to possess certain characteristics appertain-
ing to maples.

Just so, if we should examine a million
clusters of suns, we should find no two ex-
actly alike ; but this would not prove that
they formed under different laws, any more
than in the case of the maple trees.

It is now generally admitted by science

8 EVOLUTIONISM.

that the primary constituents of all that is
in the universe is ultimate atoms and their
motions. And I cannot see, after years of
study of the subject, that we need anything
more. The non-creatable, ever existent
atom furnishes all that we need to account
for matter, and the vibration of the atom
furnishes all we require to account for all
the manifestations.

Attraction and repulsion, light and heat,
chemical energy and affinity, electricity and
magnetism, mind, spirit, soul force, sound,
odor, and every conceivable manifestation
can be fully accounted for under the law of
motion, or atomic and molecular vibration.
The entire universe is full of vibrating
atoms. The fact that light, heat, and other
numerous modes of transmitting energy,
come to us across tremendous regions of
space, proves that there is no such thing as
a vacuum anywhere. Science has accepted
the existence of inter-planetary or inter-
molecular ether as a fact, attested in a thou-
sand ways. It has even been computed how

EVOLUTION OF SYSTEM 9

much its pressure is ; and from proportional
ratios, as compared with sound vibrations,
it is believed that the ether exerts a pressure
of six thousand million tons to the square
inch. Why does not this inconceivable
pressure crush everything ? Simply because
it is exerted on all sides, in, out and between.
The only thing it cannot penetrate is the
atom, and that cannot be crushed or destroyed
by outside pressure, for it is indestructable.
But if we displace the etheric balance ever
so little we find what a giant we have awak-
ened. The silent force which occupies yon-
der trolley wire, which is capable of sending
a vibration down through the car which
shall actuate its wheels and drive it along
the track, loaded with passengers, is nothing
but a slight displacement of the ether which
is made to vibrate through a space of less
than one-twentieth thousanth part of an inch.
Even this small displacement of the etheric
atoms shakes every atom of copper in the
wire from one end to the other. Shake the
atoms composing a man's body in -this vio-

io EVOLUTIONISM.

lent manner and he falls dead instantly.
His body can stand higher vibrations even
than that, but they must be vastly shorter
in range.

The ether does not possess its enormous
power and exert its pressure from the close-
ness of its atoms so much as it does from
their enormous normal vibration. The nor-
mal vibration is perfectly frightful to con-
template and beyond the possibilities of be-
lief. This is the reason that the ether is
the most elastic medium in all the universe.
It is so elastic that some scientists have
supposed it to be a " perfect gas," or one
possessing the highest possible elasticity.
The vibrations transmitted to the cosmic
ether by combustion, magnetism or electric-
ity are wholly distinct from the normal
vibrations belonging to the ether.

In the same way the vibrations of the
voice in a telephone superimpose electric
pulsations in the line wire entirely distinct
from the normal vibrations of the electricity
in the wire.

EVOLUTION OF SYSTEM. it

But it is not my intention here to go into,
the law of vibration, as fascinating a subject
as it is, as I desire to call your attention
more particularly to the evolution of peopled
worlds.

EVOLUTION OF A SOLAR SYSTEM.

Let us suppose that in some particular
part of the universe, covering a space rough-
ly averaging some fifty-four thousand mil-
lions of miles in diameter, there exists a.
quantity of atoms, mixed with and suspen-
ded in the ether. There are enough of them
to make a respectable sun, like ours, and
to furnish material enough for a complete
outfit of planets and other attendants.
These little invisible atoms would be so far
apart that the density of the entire mass
would be less than one eighteen hundred
thousand millionth that of hydrogen gas. If
the whole lot should be brought down to a
ball with a diameter equal to the orbit of
Mercury, it would then have a density thirty
times less than hydrogen gas.

Now, as this gas is the most imponderable

12 EVOLUTIONISM.

of anything in the shape of matter handled
by us, we can form a small idea of the ex-
treme tenuity of this matter. It is no "fire
mist." It cannot be seen, or in any manner
detected by the finest instruments.

We have here latent conditions for the
making of a solar system, but it consists of
multitudes of separate atoms, held far apart
by "atomic repulsion." What is that? says
one. Just this: An atom possesses the
property of movement. It wants to vibrate
in a little orbit of its own, and it will do this
whenever it can find enough room. If it
can get large elbow room it will occupy a
large space. If it is crowded by other atoms
it will vibrate in a smaller and smaller orbit,
until it gets so crowded that it will have to
join forces with other atoms in order to have
any room at all. In this manner chemical
action is started. But our little entities
have wills of their own, for when they are
obliged to choose a partner in this great
" waltz of atoms " they pick out those which
are most agreeable. This is "Chemical

EVOLUTION OF SYSTEM. i$

Affinity." — the lowest form of "mind" or
" sonl force " known to us in all the universe*
The condition which we have assumed in
this mass of attenuated vapor would go on
eternally without any particular change
were it not that each atom has still another
quality which is inherent and always active*
That is the quality of gravity. That mys-
terious, but well known force is all the time
exerted on every separate atom or molecule
of matter. It constantly tends to overcome
all other forces, for others are more or less
subject to change from environment and
position ; but gravity is always on the watch ;
it never lets up an instant. Under this
gentle, but persuasive force, our little friends
— the ultimate atoms of Hydrogen, Carbon,
Oxygen, Nitrogen, and so on — begin to draw
in toward the point where there is the most
company. At first they hold aloof from the
dance and hang upon the outskirts of the
crowd; but the vibrating throng soon pro-
duces too great an attraction for them to re-
sist, and they join in. This is going on all

14 EVOLUTIONISM.

over the vast mass, and soon little centers
of more condensed matter are formed here
and there. These little circles possess more
power and draw still more atoms to them.
It is not yet necessary, nor for millions of
years to come, for these atoms to unite in
the close embrace of chemical union. They
are not near enough. The closest of them
are still hundreds of thousands of times
their own diameters apart. They belong to
the same society, but they are not acquain-
ted yet.

After a time these little clusters begin to
revolve about other clusters, and those, in
turn, about others, and the condensation
goes on thus, we will suppose, for a billion
of years, and our matter has been so drawn
in together that it now occupies a space
about six thousand millions of miles in
•diameter.

Now, what would we naturally expect to
find, as the net result of all this motion?
Turn a pail of water into a funnel, and see
low the water naturally begins to turn about

EVOLUTION OF SYSTEM. 15

on itself as it "condenses" toward the point
of escape. This is because all masses of
matter coming toward a center must produce
currents, and these currents cannot be uni-
form in direction. They cannot proceed in
radial lines direct toward the center of grav-
ity, but must slide off and spread over the
outmost layers of matter in order to obtain
room. The well known circular character
of storms and cyclones is a manifestation of
this same property in an element millions of
times more dense, atmospheric vapor or air.

So far, our little atoms, in their whirling
clusters, have been falling gradually in, all
the time moving in a great spiral toward the
center of gravity. But they have, by this
time, generated such a motion of gyration
that they begin to feel the counteracting
effect of another force. Everything tends
to move in straight lines, and the more rap-
idly a given thing moves,.the harder it tries
to go straight ahead.

Fasten a lead ball to a string and begin
whirling it about your head, and you will

16 EVOLUTIONISM.

soon realize that the faster you whirl it the
harder the ball pulls to get away from yo\i r
until it breaks the string. Now take a rub-
ber cord, say ten feet long, and try the same.
You will see that at a given velocity the
leaden ball will stretch the string out to,
say, fifteen feet, and there stop stretching
it, and will remain at that distance until the
rate of motion is changed. In other words,
the tendency to go straight ahead just bal-
ances the elastic force of the rubber cord in
holding it to a circular orbit. This has been
called centripital and centrifugal "forces,"
but they are not " forces" at all, as far as I
can see. But if this property of inertia did
not exist there would be no worlds or suns,
such as we now have.

Now, a large ring of the uttermost parts
of this mass of matter has gotten to that
point where it has no more tendency to fall
in or out, so it rushes on in a non-contract-
ing circle for a long period of time. But
the first tendency was for the ball of matter
to flatten itself out into a disk, because all

EVOLUTION OF SYSTEM. 17

the matter at the poles of rotation would, as
its velocity increased, have a tendency to
get away from the center of rotation as far
as possible, while yet prevented from flying
off by the attraction of the rest of the mass.

Finally the time came when our outside
atoms, pursuing their orbit, drew from the
nearest ones within the circle all who would
yield allegiance to the new dynasty, and the
central disk, still shrinking, drew with it
all who would go, and a split occurred, which
left our outside circle independent, with
nothing to do but whirl on and on at a veloc-
ity of about 209 miles per minute. This is
rapid for earthly motion, as we move on its
surface, but slow for cosmical motion.

Our circle once formed, would go on for-
ever, were it not that disruption always will
come, in time, to all circles. Contentions
will break up all circles and organizations
of men, and the same thing holds good with
atoms. In this case the " contention " is the
pulling and hauling of other masses of mat-
ter at a distance, and waves of motion and

18 EVOLUTIONISM.

aggregations of matter set up in the body
of the ring. A ring will resist these outside
influences a good while before breaking up,
as witness the rings of Saturn, yet intact.
But the rings of Saturn have progressed,
from their great density, caused by proxim-
ity to the immense body of their primary,
to a point where the matter has condensed
into masses of meteoric character, so it has
become visible. Just as soon as the large
ring of matter, which we have been consid-
ering, broke in one place, the ends would
rapidly fall toward the central part of the
ring. The rear end would be drawn forward
and the front end would be gradually retar-
ded until the matter, in time, would fall into
a lump, ready to go through the same pro-
cess by itself, resulting in the formation of
another smaller ring. As the inside of the
large ring would be all the time retarded by
the proximity of the inside ball of matter,
that side would be retarded so that the outer
part would have a greater velocity.

The effect would be that the resulting

EVOLUTION OF SYSTEM. 19

planet and ring, or rings, which were des-
tined to become satellites to it, would have
a revolution in the same direction as the
original mass.

This is just what we find in our solar sys-
tem, for the planets revolve in the same
direction as the sun, and so do their satellites.
As the sun is what there is left, after all
the planets had, in turn, been made from
rings left behind, it, of course, shows the
direction of the motion. As the disk of
matter concentrated, it naturally gained a
greater velocity, as all falling bodies do, and
we see this most beautifully illustrated by
the time of revolution of all the bodies.
The sun revolves in 24 days; Mercury
moves around it in 88 days; Venus, in 225
days; the Earth, in 365 days. Each of
these planets illustrate exactly the rotation
of the parent mass at the time the ring was
cast off which formed it, and the sun shows
the motion left at a diameter of 850,000
miles. All these bodies in our solar system
are connected by an exact mathematical law

20 EVOLUTIONISM.

or laws ; all connected as if they were one
family, as they really are — a family of heav-
ly bodies. We first saw Neptune born.
We could go on and watch the birth of each
planet in succession, but it is useless.
When we see one we see all, for that is the
general process. If you are really scientific,
and desire to go deeply into the study set
forth briefly in this lecture, with the facts
and figures in minute detail, I advise you
to procure " The Origin of the Stars," by
Prof. J. Ennes, and study it well. It ex-
plains fully the making of suns and systems.

What have we learned from the facts set
forth thus far? That with the ultimate
atoms in any conceivable state of diffusion
in space, Nature has the power of going on
and making worlds, and the residuum left
in the center when concentrated to the point
where intense chemical action can unite the
atoms, as it is bound to do, will be a hot and
shining sun, to heat and light the worlds.

If some great comet should come crashing
in from outer space, made up of " left-over"

EVOLUTION OF SYSTEM. at

matter from some odd corner of the universe,
and should plunge into our sun and again
turn him to gas, and cause that gas to ex-
pand until it took in Mercury, Venus, Earth
and Mars, and they all became melted in
"fervent heat " until they were all again dif-
fused as gas, that disk would go right on
revolving, and go to forming new planets
again, as serenely as if nothing had happened.
Nature was not made for us. We were
formed to fit Nature as she is. Remember
that.

Many tremendous ages, as we understand
time, passed between the birth of Neptune
and the parting of the Earth ring. We
shall not fill in this great space, but shall,
in our next lecture, start with our Earth in
a gaseous form and watch her in her onward
progress along the great path of evolution.

LECTURE II.
£vof«tion of our £artft.

PROGRESS OF THE PLANET TERRA FROM A RINGED SUN TO
A GLOBE COVERED WITH VEGETATION.

Sixty-Six Million Years Ago.— Tan Earth as a Globb
of Gas.— The Earth as a Shining Sun. — Surrounded
by Other Suns.— it Becomes a Red Hot Planet.— A
Rain Storm Lasting Hale a Million Years.— Nep-
tune's Battle with Vulcan.— Vulcan Overcome and
Imprisoned.— Before Life Began.— Life Appears on
Our Globe.— Left in Clouds of Carbon.

R lesson this evening is to be
1 a subject that is of great inter-

all. The evolution of the

1 from the point where it ceased
a part of its mother Sun, up to

" tne time when it is a full-fledged

world, cannot but be an interesting theme
to persons of intelligence.

EVOLUTION OF EARTH. 23

We will take this infant, however, after a
few millions of years had elapsed. The ring,
of matter which parted from the sun about
sixty-six million years ago had slowly gath-,
ered itself into a disk, thick in the middle
and thin, comparatively, at the outer edges,
ready to form itself, under the unerring law
of nature, into a small system. Of but little *
importance to the universe was the forth,
coming insignificant globe and satellite, but
of the greatest importance to the countless
millions of beings v/ho were destined to e vo-
lute upon the surface of one or the other of
these tiny specks.

We need no engraving to present to our
sight the thinly distributed mass of matter
composing this system, for the place was as
near being a dark void as we can conceive.

This disk, when a million miles wide in
its diameter, must have contained natter
attenuated to at least one eight-hundredth
the density of air. In other words, the
space occupied by it was a greater "void"
than the vacuum producible by our old-fash-

EVOLUTIONISM.

ioned air pump3. Yet, strange as it may
seem, this state represented a condensation
of matter tliat had been going on for thou-
sands of millions of years, extending back
to a period long anterior to the birth of
Neptune.

THE EARTH IN A GASEOUS FORM, WITH THE RING OP I,UNA.

Our first view of Terra exhibits her as a
ringed planet, somewhat like Saturn, except
that the ring is not compound, as with Sat-
urn, and the planetary matter had not con-
densed to near the same extent.

EVOLUTION OF EARTH. 25

The ring contained the matter which was
destined to become the Earth's satellite,
Luna. We see Saturn to-day with his three
rings, slowly preparing for the birth of new
satellites to add to the number he already
possesses ; but the work goes on so slowly
that we can see but the most minute dis-
placements occurring during the long periods
of time it has been under observation.
These great cosmical changes are slow, but
sure.

Our Earth, at the stage shown in engrav-
ing No. 1, was about 445 times greater in
bulk than at present ; so its density must
have been still far less than that of water.
The moon having parted from this infant
Earth, we will leave her. to fulfill her own
destiny ; to become an inhabited globe, with
seas and continents, mountains, lakes and
islands ; to afterwards die out to a cold and
airless rock, as we now behold her, a fit
type of what our Earth is to become in the
fullness of time.

While our gentle attendant was passing

26 EVOLUTIONISM.

through her cycle of life, she possessed sev-
eral brightly shining luminaries to warm
and vivify her.

Jupiter must have been a very respectable
Sun at that period, although on the wane.

Saturn was probably only red hot, as
Jupiter is now. Venus was, no doubt, very
bright and spotless in her "garb of light,"
while "Old Sol" himself was many hun-
dreds of thousands of miles larger in diam-
eter than at present.

But all these grand globes of fire and
light would sink into insignificance, in the
eyes of Lunarians, beside a larger and
grander Sun, which they had ever with them.
It was brighter and larger than any of the
others, from its close proximity, giving it
an apparent magnitude more than sixteen
times that of Sol. This Sun was the one
upon which we now reside.

"A Sun?" say you. Yes, a Sun. For
we are living and moving upon the ashes of
a dead Sun — upon the storm-beaten and
earth-quake-shaken mass of cinders left from

EVOLUTION OF EARTH. rj

the dying out of a small Sun. Engraving
No. 2 shows this sun after she was well ad-
vanced in years. Her once white-hot sur-
face had become . yellow, while many spots
obscured her fair face. These spots were

THR EARTH, AS A

.vast masses of scoria which had become
slightly cooler and had in many cases an-
chored themselves to the more condensed
material of the core of the body.

Around these " islands of red-hot lava"

38 EVOLUTIONISM

gigantic cyclones of fire swept and swirled,
while the war of elements was so great that
a mass of basaltic rock the size of Rhode
Island might have been tossed about as a
pea in a boiling pot. It has been thirteen
million years since she parted from the
parent Sun ; still she is an infant.

We could pause here and devote much
time to a study of the gigantic forces brought
in play at this stage of our globe. We
could describe the outbursting torrents of
flaming hydrogen, as they tear their way
upward through the dense atmosphere of
carbon, iron, and other elements ; but all
of this belongs properly to the history of
Suns in general, so we will omit it and
hasten onward.

Five million years must pass, and we view
lier once more in No. 3. Ah ! what a change !
The blemishes we saw so long ago have
increased until they have enclosed her mel-
ted interior with a shell of lava; red hot
about her equator ; gray and dark about her
slowly turning poles. Why is this? you
ask. Let me explain :

EVOLUTION OF EARTH. 29

Under the well known principles of grav-
ity, centripetal and centrifugal forces, a
floating body on a circularly moving surface
will seek the parts that move with the least
velocity; even as chips floating in a tub of
water will seek the center of motion when

OUR EARTH AS A RED-HOT GLOBE.— THE FIRE STAGE.

the water is whirled about the tub with a
stick. Therefore the poles became loaded
with masses of cooling rock, ages before the
equator became cool enough to become dark
red. Up to this time the central Sun, al-

#> EVOLUTIONISM.

though blazing away with twice its present
power, had but little effect upon the Earth,
because her own heat was so great. But
now, the cooling process was to go on more
rapidly at the poles, by reason of the slant
rays of the Sun upon them. So the crust
gradually thickened and hardened at those
points, while it was constantly cracked and
fissured by enormous upheavals and the
bursting forth of the pent-up matter within.

The engraving shows the Earth in this
stage of fire as a belted planet, like Jupiter;
the belts being composed of dark masses of
aqueous vapor, mingled with carbon and
other gases. These formed a belt about the
equator a thousand miles in thickness, and
extended nearly to the poles. That belt
contained the future seas and oceans, the
coal beds and rich earth that were millions
and millions of years later to render the
Earth a fit abode for man.

These carbonic and hydrogen vapors were
constantly condensing, as they came in con-
tact with the extreme cold of outer space,

EVOLUTION OF EARTH. 31

thereby becoming precipitated to .the hot
Earth below, to again be sent flying upward
in the form of steam and gas. This pro-
duced a constant rain, night and day, for
more than five hundred thousand years, and
a period followed this when rain storms were
violent and almost constant for millions of
years more.

I am aware that these figures sound large
to those who are unaccustomed to cosmical
time. To some people, five or six thousand
years seem an eternity. But Mystics under-
stand that such small sections of time as
are dealt with in human history are simply
as nothing, when dealing with the stupen-
dous works of Nature.

Friends, the making of a world is no light
task. Nature has a mighty workshop, and
she does her work well. Time is no object.

" Ten million years to heat the iron,
Ten million more to pound,'*

is as nothing in her shop.

Our world being now formed in the shape
of a ball, slightly flattened at the poles, we

EVOLUTIONISM.

will watch it during its further development,
for a grand and mighty work must yet be
done upon her by the forces of Vulcan be-
fore she can become the abode of life. We

a WITH WATKR.

have left her astronomical history now, and
must begin upon her geological career.

We first view her as an Aquatic globe,
something like fourteen millions of years
later. During all this vast period the ter-

EVOLUTION OF EARTH. 33

rific fight has been going on constantly be-
tween Vnlcan and Neptnne. At first, old
Vulcan had the best of it, hurling the forces
of Neptune backward at every assault ; but
the latter had good staying qualities, and
the time came when Vulcan was sent down-
ward and incarcerated in a dark and gloomy
prison. But he was, and is yet, a very un-
willing prisoner, for he attempts to escape
often, with a portion of his forces, and many
a conflict ensues in consequence.

Many wonderful chemical changes took
place within the great ocean of hot water,
which covered the Earth during the Aquatic
Period. These gigantic combinations of
elements were necessary to give to the world,
which was to be the variety of compounds
which are needed in an inhabited globe.

It is a well known fact that chemists to-
day avail themselves of the solvent powers
of hot water in the formation of hundreds
of compounds. So the Earth presented the
very conditions for a gigantic chemical man-
ufacturing laboratory during many ages.

34 EVOLUTIONISM.

We will take our next view some six mil-
lions of years later, when she has become
the AZOIC EARTH, during which period
mighty changes have taken place. The
crust has cooled slowly, until the white-hot
core is covered with many miles of stone.
But the pent-up fires within are constantly
heaving and gushing upward through vast
rents in the warm rock. Were it not for
this, the level earth would be covered with
water, impregnated to saturation with car-
bonic acid gas, to the depths of hundreds of
feet. But the contraction of the crust under
the cooling process has folded up great
ridges of rock, and has thereby lifted it
above the terrible abyss of waters, so that
dry land appears.

But what an inhpspitable shore it is I A
great, dry, hot granite rock, a thousand
miles long, marks the birth of a new conti-
nent, the first one south of the Arctic Circle.

America, called the "New World," is,
geologically, the old.

"We may walk," says Agassiz, "along

EVOLUTION OF EARTH. 35

its summit, and feel that we are treading
upon the granite ridge that first divided the
waters into a northern and a southern ocean ;
and if our imaginations carry us so far, we
can look down to its base and fancy the sea

OUR GI^OBE IN ITS KARI<Y STAGE OF I,AND FORMATION.

washed against this earliest shore of a life-
less world."

A little land at the poles, a V-shaped strip
extending from the north polar land down-
ward to where Lake Superior now is, and
from thence northwesterly to the Arctic Sea,

36 EVOLUTIONISM.

together with a few islands, widely scattered,
and all the rest a wilderness of black waters.
That is the Azoic Earth twenty-eight mil-
lion years ago.

Although the parts of the Earth's frame,
explorable at present by man, yield no
traces of organic life in the Azoic rocks, we
cannot say but that early forms of vegetable
life might have been in existence at one of
the poles — probably the north — even at that
early period. We cannot examine the rocks
that now lie hidden beneath five hundred
feet of ice, but we can examine the lands
bordering upon the vast polar region, upon
all sides, and such examination has exhib-
ited a world of evidence of an exuberant life
at the North Pole. This is in the shape of
shiploads of ivory tusks from Siberia and
Alaska, while borings in the north of our
own continent have revealed hundreds of
feet in depth of coral formations, which could
only have been laid down in warm seas.

Life is natural to all conditions that favor
it; therefore we must reason that between

EVOLUTION OF EARTH. 37

the point where the temperature became
low enough to allow life to exist and the
point where it was too low to allow it, there
must stretch a tremendous period of time,
even at our poles.

The Azoic rocks are conglomerates of
still older rocks, which are, evidently, the
fragments of entire continents, which were,
no doubt, located very differently from the
continental areas of to-day.

The great "Laurentian Period " covered
some five million years of time, and the
rocky formation is about thirty thousand
feet in thickness. The " Huronian Period,"
lasting about four million years, with from
twelve to twenty thousand feet of rock, com-
prises the balance of the Azoic, or, as called
by some geologists, the " Eozoic Period."

THE PALAEOZOIC EARTH.

Our next view shows the earth after this
tremendous period of nine millions of years
had elapsed.

The first Palaeozoic period was character-
ized by terrific convulsions, during which

38 EVOLUTIONISM.

thousands of mountain tops were thrust up-
ward through the waters, forming islands.
Thus the Earth might be said to have been
in its "Island Period."

BARXY UFE STAGE OF EARTH. — ISLAND PERIOD.

This period is divided, for convenience of
study, into the Silurian, Devonian and Car-
boniferous ages. To whatever conclusion
geologists may arrive regarding earlier forms
of life, there is no doubt whatever that the
Silurian age developed billions upon billions
of mollusks, while the Devonian age follow-

EVOLUTION OF EARTH. 39

ing it found the warm seas literally swarm-
ing with fishes. These animals existed in
such immense quantities, during the two
periods named, that their fossilized remains
build up thousands of feet of rocky forma-
tions.

The third part of the Palaeozoic period,
called the Carboniferous Age, abounded in
such a growth of arborescent forms of life,
that we cannot even grasp an idea of what
it was. Plants that are now simple, tiny
spores, scarcely to be seen by the passer-by,
were, in that age, gigantic trees. The mas-
sive coal beds laid down upon our continent
show plainly that an enormous amount of
carbon must have been precipitated from
the air, as well as laid down in the form of
vegetation, in order to form the great beds
of coal, in some places more than twenty-
five feet thick and covering, in one State,
Missouri, a hundred thousand square miles.

Prof. Winchell says, in his Geological
Sketches : " The amount of vegetable mat-
in a single coal-seam six inches thick is

40 EVOLUTIONISM.

greater than the most luxuriant vegetation
of the present day would furnish in 1,200
years."

So long were each of these "ages," into
which geologists divide the Palaeozoic time,
that they subdivide the Silurian age into
the upper and lower, which are again sub-
divided into three and four divisions respec-
tively. The Devonian age is subdivided
into four great periods, and the Carbonifer-
ous into three — the one called the Permian
being the third, or uppermost.

We could write an entire book upon only
one of those divisions, and then not exhaust
the subject, as Hugh Miller wrote a large
work upon the Devonian alone.

As an inkling of the wonderful formations
during this period, we will say that the Ham-
ilton series of the Devonian subdivision of
the Palaeozoic formation, in the State of New
York, comprises more than five thousand
feet of rocky strata — nearly one mile in
thickness !

EVOLUTION OF EARTH. 41

The estimate of time for the Palaeozoic
period is as follows :

Three great periods of lower Silurian,
comprising the Potsdam, Trenton and Hud-
son, about three million years.

Four great periods of the upper Silurian,
Niagara, Salina, Lower Helderberg and
Oriskany, about two and one-half millions.

Four great periods of the Devonian, some
four million years.

The three great periods of the Carbonifer-
ous, three million and a half more, making
some thirteen million years of Palaeozoic
time.

Many geologists give a longer period than
this to the Palaeozoic, holding that the vast
changes which took place would have re-
quired more time. Some assign seven mil-
lion years to the Devonian alone; but we
must take into consideration that geological
work went on much more rapidly when all
was nearly hot, and chemical action corre-
spondingly active within the crust of the
earth. In the same manner we reduce the

42 EVOLUTIONISM.

estimates for the Carboniferous period, for
reasons which will be obvious to all who con-
sider the rank-growing vegetation of that age.

There will always exist a wide difference
of opinion regarding the lapse of time in the
consideration of geological formations. There
must be a wide latitude allowed, as there is
no exact line of demarkation between the
various ages and the formations appertain-
ing thereunto.

We can, therefore, only deal in approxi-
mate figures, in order to attempt to give you
some idea of time, as well as thickness of
strata.

But we will now leave our Earth, covered
with the wonderful growth of the Carbonif-
erous period, which was engaged, for ages
upon ages, in the work of burying beneath
thousands of feet of coal, slate and shale the
fossil remains of untold billions of fish of
the Devonian period, and other untold bil-
lions of Trilobites, who ruled and possessed
the Earth, "and the fullness thereof," dur-
ing the great Silurian Period.

EVOLUTION OF EARTH. 4$

We will leave her, with her rank and
reaking swamps of gigantic asparagus-like
trees, her tropical jungles, her hot beds of
ferns, where what are now only a growth of
a few inches, were then great and towering
forms. We leave her in her tangled dress
of vegetation, with cold-blooded, croaking
amphibians crawling over her bosom, know-
ing that we shall soon see her again in all
her glory, as a purified Earth, being slowly
prepared for the habitation of the higher
forms of life, which should eventually result
under the great forces of evolution in the
production of man.

LECTURE III.
Earl fit's Evolution.

PROGRESS OF THE PLANET TERRA FROM THE CARBONIFER-
OUS PERIOD TO THE ERA OF MAN.

Second Life Stage.— Great Changes Take Place.—
The Age of Shells.— Gigantic Reptiles.— Wonders
of Chalk.— The Third Stage of Life.— The Great
Inland Sea Period.— Modern Life-Forms Dawn.—
The Work of the Ice Flow.— America a Vast Cem-
etery.— The Future of Our Globe.

5 lesson this evening starts with
a view of Old Terra, as she ap-
peared after emerging from the
t period of preparation for the
her life, when we left her cov-
_. _1 with the wonderful vegetation
of the Carboniferous Age.

We are surprised to note how few are the
changes produced in the great time that has

EARTH'S EVOLUTION.

elapsed; but, upon reflection, we conclude
the mightiest part of the work is below the
surface, only the smaller portion appearing
as additions to the embryo continents.

SECOND UFE STAGE OF EARTH.— -INCREASE OF CONTINENTS*

The framework of the Americas has been
filled out more completely from the verte-
brate of rocky islands shown in the previous
view. The Carboniferous area has been
added. The great Appalachian chain has
been uplifted above the sea.

New England was a peninsula. The

46 EVOLUTIONISM.

Gulf of Mexico washes the sides of the
Sierra Nevada. The great United States
was a vast basin of salt water, dotted with
islands, while the Northern Atlantic was
filled with a mass of land which was after-
ward to be hurled by gigantic currents and
upheavals upon the surface of the North
American Continent. Mesozoic time is di-
vided into the Triassic period, the Jurassic
period and the Cretaceous period, each of
which lasted long enough to develop the
most remarkable class cf animals of which
imagination could possibly conceive. Rep-
tiles of all patterns and sizes ruled the
earth. Gigantic lizards, "with eyes two
feet in diameter ;" turtles nearly large
enough to lay out into city lots, and numer-
ous other reptiles, some of them with wings,
and all of them having Greek names long
enough to paralyze any modern animal to
carry. Nature had a partly-made earth,
warm and dank, with the air filled with car-
bonic gas ; so she developed a lot of mon-
sters to fill in the time and keep things
moving.

EARTH'S EVOLUTION* 47

We estimate the time during this period
at four million years, although there are
grave reasons for assigning part of this
time to the preceding period. But the New
Red Sand Stone, which is assigned to the
Devonian by some geologists, belongs to
this formation. When we consider the vast
chalk deposits laid down by microscopic
animals, together with numerous other strata,
such as the rock salt beds of the Triassic
period and the sand stones of the Jurassic,
interstratified with gold-bearing quartz, we
must concede a very long period to the
Mesozoic. This period constitutes the great
middle-life stage of development, in geolog-
ical history.

The work of purifying the air from carbon
was still going on, and one of the most po-
tent factors in this work was the laying
down, in the form of rock, of large layers of
carbonate of lime.

It is usually considered that the Mesozoic
really starts a new cycle of life on this globe,
so great is the distinction between the fos-

48 EVOLUTIONISM.

siliferous deposits found here and those in
lower strata.

But we must hasten onward, leaving the
more minute examination to a future lec-
ture, when we examine the strata closer, in
a journey toward the center of the earth.

During the Cretaceous period, of the Mes-
ozoic, Nature seems to have literally reveled
in the manufacture of shells.

While she gave due attention to enormous
reptiles, animals encased in shells were, ap-
parently, a special feature of the work of
that period.

In England there are immense beds of
chalk ; also in France we find the same form-
ation. Now, the microscope reveals to us
that every inch of this stratum is composed

of tiny, indestructible shells — indestructi-
ble, that is, by ordinary convulsions of na-
ture, because they are so exceedingly smalt.
One cubic inch of chalk contains over fifty-
eight thousand microscopic shells. The
chalk beds, thousands of feet thick, were laid
down under water at the rate of the thickness
of a sheet of tissue paper annually.

EARTH'S EVOLUTION. 49

During the Mesozoic time, vast mountain
chains were forced upward and then slowly
degraded or worn down, leaving the upturned
edges of the strata of preceding edges ex-
posed. Upon these edges the newer forma-
tions were laid down. As one geologist
exclaims : " The surface of the earth seems
to have teetered up and down, as if the land
rested upon a water-soaked bog." That
exactly expresses the facts as revealed by
an examination of the rocky leaves from the
Silurian upward. It was a "water-soaked
bog," but the bog rested upon a thin crust
of rock, which in turn pressed upon a mass,
of white-hot semi-liquid earth materials

The thinness is only so by comparison
with the size of the earth ; for it is estima-
ted that at this period the crust averaged
about thirty-eight miles in thickness. Many
miles of this crust would be red hot, though
consistent.

We must not linger longer with this fas-
cinating Earth, but hasten onward to the
age of Mammals, those forerunners of man..

S<>

EVOLUTIONISM.

THE CENOZOIC EARTH.

We next view our Earth in the Cenozoic
period, in the great "third Life Stage," or,
as some geologists call it, the " Inland Sea
Period."

The great continental areas are better de-
fined. The United States is still nearly

THIRD STAGE OF LIFE. — THE GREAT INLAND SEA PERIOD.

bi-sected by an enormous arm of the North-
ern Sea, while in South America the valleys
of the Amazon and the Rio de la Plata are
united in a vast sea, which divides the con-
tinent into two parts.

EARTHS EVOLUTION. 51

It was during this long period that some
of the most stupendous changes took place
in the configuration of the globe, as far as the
surface was concerned. Previous changes
were mostly beneath the waters, but a grand
fashioning of the land must now take place.

The Cenozoic time is divided into two
great periods — the Tertiary and the Post
Tertiary. The Tertiary is sub-divided into
three grand periods called the Eocene, Mio-
cene and the Pliocene.

The Post Tertiary extends upward through
the Glacial epoch and the Terrace epoch.

We cannot stop to examine the wonderful
animals which developed upon the land dur-
ing the Miocene and Pliocene periods, but
we will examine the geographical changes.
During the ages which supervened, we find
that the great sea arm of North America
was cut off by the rising of great walls of
rock in the north. Then the sea grew
smaller and smaller by slow degrees, while
its salt was deposited slowly in layers upon
its bottom, until, after an enormous time

52 EVOLUTIONISM.

had elapsed, the great sea became a com-
paratively small lake, still somewhat impreg-
nated with salt and other soluble minerals.
But, though small in comparison, it occu-
pied an area five times the size of Lake
Superior, at the close of the Miocene period.
It covered the spot where Golden City and
Denver now stand, and the "Bad Lands"
and sage brush plains of the West, over an
area of over 150,000 square miles. (Steel,
Hay den, Denton.)

The Mississippi and Ohio rivers then
emptied into the Gulf of Mexico near where
Cairo, Illinois, now stands. In addition, we
notice that the islands of the North Atlantic
had risen into a broad continent, which was
a continuation of the older North-polar con-
tinent, and was, with its outlying islands at
the south of it, destined to become a great
highway, over which the early races of men
could flee from the gathering cold of the
North-land. (See " Religion of the Stars,"
pp. 18 to 21.)

In addition to the immense quadrupeds,

EARTH'S EVOLUTION. 53

such as the terrific monster exhibited in the
Anthropological building at the World's
Fair, Prof. Dana says that 25,000 specimens
of fossil fruits have been found, as well as
over 3,000 species of shells in the Tertiary
rock alone.

The Eocene epoch of the Tertiary period
covered about four hundred and fifty thou-
sand years, and during this time we find the
first dawn of modern life forms. This means
that previous to about two million years ago
Nature had not yet developed her patterns
of life at all, as we now behold them.

The Miocene epoch of the Tertiary period
covered about the same length of time as
the Eocene. During this epoch great
changes took place in the surface of the
earth, and the fossils show a large propor-
tion allied to existing forms.

The Pleocene formation, which was laid
down during an age estimated at three hun-
dred and fifty thousand years, completes
the great Tertiary period.

This brings us down to the Glacial epoch,

EVOLUTIONISM.

the lowest formation of the Post Tertiary,
called the "Drift."

We show the Earth at the beginning, or
near the beginning, of that time. Our poor,
tortured Earth has been tried by fire, by

THE EARTH IN THE GREAT DRIFT PERIOD, OR THE I.AKE

AND ICE EPOCH.

water, and by earthquake shocks, for ages
upon ages. But now she must pass the
ordeal of the air. For the air now conspired,
with all the others together, to bring upon
her the most extraordinary series of expe-
riences that could be conceived.

EARTH'S EVOLUTION. 55

First, we ask you to dismiss from your
minds the idea that the Glacial period was
brought about through extreme cold. Cold
could never have done it alone, nor could
heat ; but a combination of the two could.
What is needed to make enormous quanti-
ties of snow? Plenty of steam, or water
vapor. What is needed to generate this
vapor? Plenty of heat.

So we have, as so ably shown by Prof.
Donnelly, the conditions for a Glacial epoch :

First. A place where much aqueous vapor
could be generated.

Second. Winds to carry it to a colder place
on the globe.

Third. Cold air to turn the vapor to snow.

All these conditions came when the air
above the poles became cold, through the
shutting off of the internal heat of the earth
by the thickening of the polar crust and the
lessening of the sun's effectiveness by rea-
son of its diminished size, and the polar
angle of the earth to the sun's rays.

Many different opinions have been ad-

56 EVOLUTIONISM.

vanced regarding the probable period to be
assigned to the Glacial epoch. It is a thing
which is open to all sorts of speculations,
because the beginning of glacialization is
hard to define, while the ending has not even
come yet in many parts of the earth. But
I am inclined to think that the epoch was
one of waves ; that is, the ice had its terms
of advancing and retreating, with a period
of about twenty-one thousand years each,
corresponding to the "geological season."
We can safely estimate the Glacial epoch at
half a million years.

When the geologists examine the terrific
evidences of the plowing down of vast moun-
tain chains, the gouging out of large lakes,
like Lake Michigan, the filling up of great
valleys, and then running the immense ice
plows through them again and again, they
cannot curtail the Glacial epoch much, if
any, beyond the period named. And what
is the use of it, anyway? It has been de-
monstrated, by careful experiments in the
cooling of granite and basaltic rock, that the

EARTH'S EVOLUTION. 57

crust of the earth would require, at the least,
fifty million years to cool down to its present
average thickness of between forty-eight and
fifty-one miles.

Therefore, the geologist need not cut down
his needed time to bring about the evolution
of the earth. The astronomer deals in cos-
mical changes requiring such enormous
reaches of time, that the paltry fifty millions
asked for by geology can be accorded with-
out a murmur.

The great glaciers of piled-up snow and
ice crushed toward the equator, from both
poles, in stupendous ridges of ice, many
miles in depth ; but the hot earth-belt of the
torrid zone melted the ice and sent it up-
ward in steam, to be again caught by the
"powers of the air," and hurried to the snow-
clad poles, to once more pass, at the rate of
a few feet per year, toward the equator.

During this awful period, life, both vege-
table and animal, had a hard struggle for ex-
istence. It was driven first to the north,
then to the south, in waves or vibrations

58 EVOLUTIONISM.

corresponding to the "great astronomical
year " of the earth. But the work of evolu-
tion went on slowly, step by step, to more
perfected forms, as the environments would
permit.

While this tremendous work was going
on, Pluto had not ceased his labors, by any
means, for we find that our continent was
lifted bodily and again dropped down beneath
its load of ice, several times.

The next epoch, called by some geologists
the "Post Glacial," and by others the "Cham-
plain epoch," finds our Earth in the " spring-
time of life " once more. The ice breaks up,,
the ocean covers part of the State of Main,
and broad, majestic rivers dig deep channels
through the wide valleys furrowed by the
gigantic ice flows of the preceding epoch.
The land arose and fell like the billows of
ocean during the period, which lasted some
three hundred thousand years.

After the "Champlain Epoch" came the
great period called the "Terrace Epoch,"
which lasted some two hundred thousand

EARTH'S EVOLUTION.

years, and is yet, for we are in the alluvial
portion of that epoch at the present time.
During this period the land all over the
earth oscillated up and down, like a ship at
sea. It was during this time that the gi-

THE POST-GI.ACIAI,.

gantic terraces, or stair-like ridges, were
formed, such as those we see at Mackinac
and elsewhere. This feature is especially
noticeable in the West or Rocky Mountain
region, where the great lakes are shown in.
the engraving.

€o EVOLUTIONISM.

The Atlantic continent is seen almost
submerged, to again uprise, while its mate
sinks, on this " continental teeter."

The mouths of the Mississippi, Amazon
and Rio de la Plata are still several hundred
miles inland from their positions at a later
period. The State of Michigan and part
of Wisconsin are under water, forming one
large lake.

We might say that the terrace and glacial
epochs are going on, even at this day, as
they are, in a mild and restricted way; but
for convenience those designations are con-
fined to ancient energetic conditions long
past.

In the illustrations of the Post Glacial
epoch, you will notice that the Americas
have assumed an appearance nearly the
same as the present, yet there is a great dif-
ference in details, too small to be shown.
The river systems have changed a great
deal, also the lake systems.

Atlantis, the "gem of the ocean," has be-
come well defined during this period, while

EARTH'S EVOLUTION. 6*

the Atlantic continent has been broken up
and partly washed away, leaving numerous
islands.

Greenland has retreated farther north-
ward, leaving the place where the Atlantic
continent stood, with its millions of beings,
to become the great submarine " ocean tel-
egraphic plateau " of our day.

There has been much controversy over
the question as to the particular point in
geologic time, when man first became a de-
velopment which could be distinguished from
the quadrumana. Scientific authorities dif-
fer very widely upon estimates; and every
new discovery has a tendency to place the
accepted estimate farther back. Taking
all the evidence at hand from various sources,
we are of the opinion that the first distinct
type of men appeared upon the earth about
450,000 years ago.

There was a great and distinct change in
animal life during the Post-Glacial epoch,
when the mammoth and cave-bear seem to
have co-existed with early man.

«2 EVOLUTIONISM.

Long ages of time elapsed, during which
tremendous vicissitudes occurred to our
earth and its inhabitants. Man was obliged
to fight his way upward, even as his pro-
genitors had done before him, step by step,
sometimes retrograding for a time, then
advancing.

We give another view of our Earth, in
the alluvial or present stage of time, when
the rocks over a large part of the continental
divisions are deeply covered with the rich
debris from former lands, now pulverized
and scattered.

Monstrous beasts roamed over the earth
in the early part of this epoch ; vast quad-
rupeds multiplied on the face of our planet,
and disputed possession with man. But
"mind" conquered brute force, as it always
does, and puny man put to route the wild
beasts, who threatened his existence.

WAS THE WORLD FINISHED ON MAN'S

ADVENT ?

It unquestionably was not. We are in
the midst of changes as vast as ever, only

EARTH'S EVOLUTION.

the earth being cooler the changes are
slower. Continents are being raised and
lowered. Mountains and hills are being de-
graded, and river valleys filled up by the
ever-active forces of Nature.

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THE EARTH IN THE AIAUVIAI, OR RIVER PERIOD.

"America is one vast cemetery of buried
and forgotten forms of life, man being in-
cluded among them."

Other nations have arisen upon this con-
tinent, fought the battle of life, and have
fallen into oblivion.

64 EVOLUTIONISM.

Fourteen thousand years ago a flourish-
ing nation occupied the soil where we now
strut about as upon the stage of life.

Other nations will follow, and still others.
Lands will sink and lands will rise, as, step
by step, the cold of the arctic regions will
drive men towards the Equator.

Lake Michigan will dwindle gradually to
a river. Chicago, after attaining the grand
position of a leading city of the world, with
six million inhabitants, will sink beneath
the quicksands, inch by inch, and will dis-
appear from the sight of man. New York
City will be under four hundred feet of salt
sea water, and Boston will be a memory.

The lakes and rivers become slowly con-
gealed as the great ice walls of the arctic
sea press downward over our devoted and
doomed country, step by step, until the
whole is covered with the crystal pall.

But, while this change is going on, kind
Nature provides a home for her children.
She raises vast bodies of land from the broad
bosom of the Pacific, whose thousands of

EARTH'S EVOLUTION

islands become continents. Although our
sun is diminished in splendor at this far-off
date, the loss of heat is compensated for by
its perpendicular rays upon the land surface

of our globe.

I have one more chart to show you. It
is a view of Terra some millions of years
hence, when the broad bosom of the Pacific
is dotted with new islands and new lands,

IDEAL VIEW OF THE EARTH THREE MILLION YEARS IN
ADVANCE. — EQUATORIAL LAND PERIOD.

peopled with races who have not the slight-
est history that such a country as the Uni-
ted States of America ever had a being.

66 EVOLUTIONISM.

Billions of tiny animals are busily en-
gaged in the work of building up new lands,
upon a scale so vast that the achievements
of men in changing the face of our globe
are as an ant-hill compared with the great
pyramid.

The people of that period will have no
more knowledge of there having been such
a country as the United States of America
than we have now of countries which exis-
ted ten thousand or twenty thousand years
ago. Our very records will have disap-
peared, and our language will have been
forgotten.

We can imagine them sending air-pro-
pelled vessels to the sites of Chicago, Bos-
ton, New York, Loudon or Paris, there, amid
the dangers of an arctic rigor of climate, to
excavate for long-forgotten evidences of a
past civilization.

LECTURE IV.
Tfte &ge of Mammals*

A DESCENT INTO THE ROCKY STRATA OF THE PLANET TERRA.

The Age of Man.— Development and Comparative
Anatomy from the Bat to Man.— The Age of Great
Beasts and Birds.— Charts Showing the Fossils
Corresponding to Strata.— Wonders of the Chalk.
—Untold Billions of Animal Remains to Each
Square Foot.— Early Forms of Animals now on
Earth.— Twenty-Seven Hundred Feet Downward.
—A Gentleman of the Terrace Epoch.— Anecdote
of a Monkey.

have traced the formation of
3ur globe from a formless void
nf gas to an inhabited world.
We have watched her career, by
a series of gigantic strides, as
she passed through the vicissi-
tudes attending her birth and growth.

68 EVOLUTIONISM.

Now, dear friends, I propose to take you
upon a shorter journey, but a strange one —
down into the crust of this old earth of ours,
where we can examine more minutely the
structural formation and the corresponding
fossiliferous deposits which make up her
history en pages of rock.

Now, do not be scared, thinking that I
am going to talk to you of animals, in names
eight syllables long, and in small italic at
that, for I know better than to do so. I
know very well that such a name as " Rarn-
phorhyncus " conveys no specific meaning to
the average mind, and does more to confuse
and cause a dislike for science than anything
else. We shall view the fossilized remains
of these animals as we find them, but their
Greek names will be left severely alone. I
hope to make geology, which so many con-
sider a "dry" study, an interesting and
juicy one.

I will call your attention first to Chart A,
where man, the * 'crowning glory of crea-
tion," stands at the top. The representative

7© EVOLUTIONISM.

of the Caucasian race is shaking hands with
the representative of a lower race, who is
much nearer, physically and mentally, to
the gentlemen who are seen below, " climb-
ing upward." All the figures upon this
chart are given with the anatomical struc-
ture showing, in order that you may com-
pare the anatomy.

The giant bat of the drift, whose " fingers "
were wing-frames, is an intermediate form,
yet his skeleton is not so very different from
man's, aside from the fingers. You will
note the gradual change in length of arm,
which took place, under the law of develop-
ment, as the quadrumana evoluted. As they
raised their bodies more and more to an up-
right position, the arms, which at first were
simply fore legs, became longer and longer,
until the time came, as we see in the gorilla,
when the arms were dispensed with, as sup-
porters, and used for other purposes.

They then shortened rapidly, up to man,
where the hands come only to the leg. On
the left you will notice the leg and foot of

THE AGE OF MAMMALS. 71

the horse. Further down, in the early part
of the Terrace epoch, the horse had three
hoofs. In the drift he had two long toes
and a hoof.

The rocky strata, on this chart, speaks
for itself. You will see logs and stumps
under many feet of rock. This is very com-
mon, and we shall, doubtless, find more of
them as we dig deeper.

We do not see the lower order of monkeys
in Chart A ; they extend far down into the
Tertiary period, and the upward evolution
was a much longer process than would be
supposed, from the examination of this chart.

STUDY OF CHART B.

The lower part of the Post-Tertiary Period
was characterized by the development of
some most extraordinary animals. Size
seems to have been the great feature of the
period. Gigantic birds, enormous quadru-
peds, some of them weighing, when alive,
more than fifty tons each. That turtle-like
animal, standing up high, with a thick,
protecting shell, must have weighed over a

THE AGE OF MAMMALS. 73

thousand pounds. Such was the abundance
of animal life at this epoch that the tusks
of certain animals are an article of commerce
in immense quantities now. Single tusks
have been found, weighing two hundred
pounds. This trade has been going on for
more than five hundred years, yet the sup-
ply seems undiminished.

At figure A we see an earlier form of the
foot of a horse, having four toes.

EXAMINATION OF CHART C.

Passing downward a few hundred feet
from the surface, we now arrive at the strata
of the great Tertiary period and come to the
Pleocene epoch. We have passed the inter-
esting period of the Glacial drift, as it offers
but little in the way of fossils. There was
too much ice grinding its way over our con-
tinent to allow much life to exist.

We still find the remains of animals re-
sembling existing species. Many enormous
quadrupeds roamed over the clayey soil.
Wonderful shell fish abounded. In some
parts of the world, such as the " Bad Lands "

THE AGE OF MAMMALS. 75

of Dakota, and the soil below Paris, France,
the clay is actually built up with skeletons.
Below the great clay beds are found chalk
deposits, hundreds of feet in thickness >
which are entirely made up of microscopic
shells. A piece of this chalk the size of a
pin head is shown, greatly magnified. This
piece is from the Cretaceous stratum, lower
down, but it possesses the same characteris-
tics as the chalk of the Pleocene.

CHART D CONSIDERED.

Another drop of many hundreds of feet
takes us through the wonderful Miocene
Epoch, where we find but very few fossils of
species allied to existing forms. Abun-
dance of vegetable remains, as well as ani-
mal, attest to the exuberance of those two
forms of life. It is claimed that more than
3,000 species of Tertiary shells have been
discovered, together with numerous vegeta-
ble species. In Virginia, near Richmond,
extensive deposits of earth are found, made
up of fossil diatoms, so small that a single
cubic inch contains forty-one million perfect

THE AGE OF MAMMALS. 77

fossil organisms. This is more than seventy
thousand millions to the cubic foot. One
thousand feet perpendicularly, one foot
square, would contain a thousand times as
many. This means that, as a man stands
over a square foot of ground, in some parts
of the earth, he is standing over the remains
of more than seventy millions of organisms
entomed in chalk, to say nothing of other
millions encased in the other numerous
formations.

Oh ! the wonders on wonders of life and
of death which have " made our planet a
cemetery of buried and forgotten forms ! n

But we must leave this stratum just as we
reach a few feet of the Eocene, and pass
downward to th<e

CONSIDERATION OF CHART E.

The Eocene Epoch is the lowest of the
great Cenozoic Age and the Age of Mam-
mals. Fossils of gigantic quadrupeds and
fishes are found here in abundance. Enor-
mous teeth are found, so large that a man
can scarcely lift one. Lime-stone strata are

THE AGE OF MAMMALS. 79

found here, hundreds of feet in thickness
and covering many thousands of square
miles of territory, which is largely composed
of small coin-shaped shells called Rhizopods.
These are scattered all through the Eocene
strata all over the world. The great Pyra-
mids of Egypt are built largely of this stone.
This stratum is rich in fossils wherever it
is found, and, being of an average thickness
of a thousand feet, we can form but a small
conception of the tremendous number of
animal and vegetable forms which lived and
had their being and left their records on the
rocky leaves. Early forms of some of our
most common animals of to-day are found in
the Eocene. Among these are the tapir,
camel, mouse, bat, squirrel, rhinosceros,
possum, mole, hedgehog, and a numerous
collection of fishes. But it is a notable fact
that among all the fossils found, not a
single species resembling the monkey of
to-day or of the Pleocene has been found.
Insects abound in great multitude, shell fish
swarmed in the great Eocene seas and lakes ;

80 EVOLUTIONISM.

but among all the vast and teeming throng
not one species had developed to the dignity
of our humble and despised little progenitor,
the monkey. While we rest here, "down
in the depths," about twenty-seven hundred
feet, let us reflect upon the lessons taught
by the strata we have passed through. We
have only, as it were, " scratched the sur-
face" of our Earth, yet we have arrived at a
point where we find only early forms of any
existing species.

We have watched the development, step
by step, and we can see so plainly the grad-
ual work of Evolution, as life slowly changed
under environment.

In the Miocene, deer first became deer>
and at the same epoch a small animal, which
had inhabited the forests of the Eocene
epoch, became so expert at climbing trees
and taking hold of limbs with his "fore
feet," and with all so cunning in escaping
from the ravenous wild beasts who threat-
ened his existence, that he "resembled" the
monkey of our present tropical forests.

THE AGE OF MAMMALS. 81

Not a monkey of all the tribes living now
is exactly like that far-back forefather, who
first lifted himself up a peg above the brutes
about him by using his reasoning powers to
save his life. The great orang, who devel-
oped in the Terrace epoch, was a highly
intelligent and learned gentleman, compared
to his humble Miocene prototype.

A few years ago I stopped in front of a
store to watch the antics of a beautiful ring-
tailed monkey which the owner of the store
had just procured from abroad. While I
was watching the little fellow the proprietor
came out, and I asked him if he would hang
a small mirror up in the cage. He consen-
ted, and we soon had the monkey puzzling
over that wonder. He sided up to it and
primped himself before it for a few minutes ;
then he seemed to reflect, and he made up
his mind that the other monkev, which he
could plainly see, was, in some mysterious
way, out of the common. He was a Mystic,
of low development, that monkey was, for
he was not contented with mere appearances.

32 EVOLUTIONISM.

They might do for a dog or cat or a bird or
some such low order, but not for our scien-
tific friend in the cage.

" I must understand this thing if it takes
all summer," he seemed to say, as he care-
fully sided up and suddenly reached around
behind the mirror, in the hope of catching
the ghost which he saw. Then he climbed
all about it, and closely examined the glass,
and came to the conclusion that it was a
fraud, on the face of it. Then he swung
himself off to the other side of the cage, and
got another good look at his reflection, and,
shaking his head, seemed to say: "There it
is again; there is no use of talking, here is
a wonderful phenomenon, which I have got
to investigate. I never saw such a wonder
as that before." Then he would start for
the mirror again, with the most puzzled look
on his quaint little face, which told plainly
that he had lost all interest in the common
affairs of life in the presence of this new
problem.

By this time the crowd had become so

THE AGE OF MAMMALS. 83

large that I had to back out of it ; but I have
many times thought of that little fellow, and
I have reflected that the men who burned
heretics at the stake a few hundred years
ago and those who burned witches in Salem,
need not blush when they look back to their
progenitors of a former epoch.

The monkey of Africa, who climbs upon
a limb and chatters at his tribe seated on
the ground beneath, is an orator, in his way,
talking upon affairs of interest to them, no
doubt ; and, although he never gave his vote
and "influence" for a block of gas stock, or
helped to rush a street car franchise, he is
none the less entitled to our consideration
and respect.

We will now ascend to the surface, and at
our next meeting start here and dig down-
ward into the Great Mesozoic Stratum, to see
what secrets of life we can read there.

LECTURE V.
Tfte €lge of Reptiles*

TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED FEET DEEPER INTO THE BOSOM! OF
MOTHER EARTH.

Grand March of Progress. — Terrible Monsters In-
habit the Earth. — Great Winged Dragons ft,*
through thb Air.— We pind the Remains of
Swarms of Monstrous Reptiles.— A Frog as Large
as an Ox. — A Lizard with Eves the Size of a
Washtub.— A New Cycle of Life.

UR journey this evening has its

point of departure about half

nile below the surface, and the

ta already passed in our descent

resents millions of years of the

.. __.r and tear of the elements, and

ages of uplifting and degrading of the land

surfaces of the globe, while life went forward

in its grand march of progress.

THE AGE OF REPTILES. 85

THE GREAT MESOZOIC TIME — CHART F.

We now delve into the rock of the "Age
of Reptiles." This age ended with such
terrific convulsions and disturbances that
but a few types remained of all the vast
number of beings who inhabited our planet.

The Mesozoic time, like the Paleozoic, was
closed by mighty upheavals. As Winchell
beautifully says : " The ever-shrinking earth-
nucleus necessitated the ever-enlarging wrin-
kles of the enveloping crust; the furrows
must deepen and the folds must rise."

Steel says of this period : "Another cycle
of geologic history is finished, another phase
of life has swept across the slowly-forming
world, culminated and broken on the shore
of the past. The reign of reptiles is closed."
"The increasing pressure of the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans produced another up-
heaval of the land, and another addition to
the growing continent. This was probably
not a sudden convulsion, but a long-contin-
ued upward movement. By it, however, the
conditions of life were changed."

THE AGE OF REPTILES. 87

Nature had ended a long series of devel-
oping efforts, during which she had pro-
duced some of the most remarkable mon-
sters possible to conceive under natural law.
Yet, upon the other hand, we shall find that
all the monsters conform to general princi-
ples of structural devlopment, forming a con-
necting link in the chain of evolution.

Gigantic animals, capable of crashing
their way through the rank forests of the
period, existed, as types of those later ani-
mals which we find in the Tertiary epoch.
Other terrible monsters were able to fly
through the air and to dart upon their prey
from thecarboi>ladened atmosphere.

But these animals were cold, slimy rep-
tiles. We find, however, a very few fossils,
indicating that here and there a small mam-
mal, or a bird, or a flowering shrub had
made its appearance in some extra-favorable
spot upon the globe.

But reptiles were the rulers of the earth.
The water is alive with them ; the land is
black with them ; they swarm upon every

88 EVOLUTIONISM.

hand. Great lizards, seventy feet long and
many feet in height, crash their way through
the tangled forests. Awful winged dragons,
with great mouths like crocodiles, armed
with a formidable array of teeth, sail slowly
along on broad, leather-like wings.

But a great part of the present land sur-
faces were under water then, so the stratum
we are now in is called the Cretaceous, from
"Creta"— chalk.

As the large animals were all protected
by coats of mail, the smaller ones, on both
land and in the sea, seem to have been pro-
vided by kind Nature with houses of their
own to live in. On the land, snails and
worms swarmed ; in the sea and in the great
lakes, innumerable shell fish lived. We
have already found some of these in the
chalk of the Tertiary. Here we find hun-
dreds of feet, like the other, made up of the
remains of animals. The green sands and
marl of this period are rich with fossils.

Passing downward about one thousand
feet through this stratum, we come to the

THE AGE OF REPTILES. 89

stratified rocks of the Jurassic period and
the epoch of the lower chalk,

ILLUSTRATED IN CHART G.

Lizards and other enormous reptiles, with
teeth like great stumps, and, in some cases,
like pruning knives, were as plenty as swal-
lows are now. We find in the strata of the
Jurassic more than twenty species of flying
dragons. Our modern friend, the frog, who
has a form somewhat allied to man's, had
his prototype in this age in an animal as
large as an ox. Think of such an animal,
hopping forty feet at a jump, coming after
you to snap you up, as a frog or toad snaps
up a fly I

The illustrations on chart G will show
you the remarkable forms of shells, which
were inhabited at that period, better than I
can describe them to you.

Great upheavals of strata took place, when
entire States would be turned up on edge,
so that our reptilian progenitors had a pretty
hard life of it in some parts of the earth.

Prof. Nicholson says: "The total thick-

THE AGE OF REPTILES. 91:

ness of this stratum may be over 1 ,000 feet,,
and it teems with fossils."

CONSIDERATION OF CHART H.

Here we find still earlier forms of the
monsters described above. One lizard had
eyes two feet in diameter, or about the size of
a washtub. One great animal had a head
like a lizard, teeth like a crocodile, neck like
a snake, and paddles like a whale. He
seemed designed as a sort of experiment of
what was to be tried later in various animals.

The great eight-armed cuttle-fish first
makes his appearance here, in a form quite
different, however, from the modern octopus.
The bellemnite, or " dart-fish" of the Trias-
sic period, was a progenitor of our cuttle-fish,
even possessing the " ink bag," as it is called.

Prof. Nicholson gives the Triassic as
averaging fifteen hundred feet in thickness.
In the United States the Triassic and Juras-
sic strata are, in many places, six thousand
feet thick; but this is in great valleys, which
were filled from the washings of adjacent
hills. Where we are now — about six thou-

THE AGE OF REPTILES. 9$

sand feet beneath the surface — the very first
representatives of anything approaching;
birds or mammals in structure or habits
have been found.

In all the tremendous eons of the past>
Nature had only been making ready to de-
velop these higher forms.

A new cycle of life seems to begin with
the Mesozoic. Five grand old types of life
remain, but they are changed to meet the
newer and better conditions. The Permian
period had greatly purified the air, so that
animals could live on land, and the vegeta-
ble world had developed to a point where
birds and mammals could feed thereon, and
multiply their numbers. But there were
no such animals at first ; they all must be
evoluted, and they were. Lizards came
forth upon the land and multiplied for ages
upon ages, until the legs grew longer, the
heads and tails shorter, until the structure,
in time, came to resemble somewhat that of
the early beasts of the Paleozoic.

It is strange that certain parts seem to de-

•94 EVOLUTIONISM.

velop in pairs. Thus we notice that the
corals of this age have six arms; that is,
they are arranged in sixes ; while in the next
we are to enter they have but four.

The fishes, too, have changed materially
in structure.

Here, at the depth of about a mile, we
^will call a halt, while we rest a bit and con-
template the wonders of Evolution. How
plainly we can see that instead of the earth
being "created" to fit the animals, the ani-
mals are evoluted to fit the earth's conditions.

The surface was just fitted for the occu-
pancy of the gigantic reptiles we have seen,
and they were there to live and enjoy it.
A man would have been as much out of
place on the earth, in the Triassic period, as
a "giant lizard" would be in a modern draw-
ing-room. The earth was not ready for the
higher life. In the same manner, we know
that man, only a hundred years ago, was
not ready for the light. He could not com-
prehend it and he could not receive it. When
evolution had advanced him to where he

THE AGE OF REPTILES. 95

was ready for it, then science and the light
of truth could come. Everything comes
when the time is ripe for it.

All our experience and all our history
shows that Truth cannot be comprehended
by human beings until they have developed
up to it. We are making the most terrible
mistakes now, in government, in finances,
and in our laws. Most awful injustice is
being done now, and has been done in the
past, and all because we are not progressed
to the understanding of Truth.

When we are all fit to enjoy a heaven of
bliss and happiness, we will have such a
heaven, and not before.

LECTURE VI.
Tarougfi <5oaf and Fisft.

A JOURNEY TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OLD RED SAND STONE.

The High Water Mark of Ancient Evolution. — The
Earth a Reeking Swamp.— Beautiful Festoons oe
Fossil Foliage.— Wonders of the Coal Levels. — .
A Plunge into the Devonian.— a World of Fishes.
—Four Solid Miles oe Rock Above Us.

E are now about to penetrate into
a new field, for we must start our
next descent into the strata of
the great Paleozoic time, start-
ing in with the Permian Epoch
of the Carboniferous Age.
CONSIDERATION OF CHART I,
We are now in a stratum which was the
high water mark of evolution for a long
series of transformations. Prof. Denton
beautifully says of this period :

98 EVOLUTIONISM.

"As the stars sink, one by one, in the
west, and new stars rise in the east, to be
succeeded by the dawn and then the day, so
through the night of the past sank the old
life-forms, to be succeeded by the new, ap-
proaching nearer to the dawn of the day in
whose morning we live."

The close of the Carboniferous period
finds the surface of the earth a vast green-
house. Rank vegetation is everywhere. No
songs of birds are heard above the reeking
morass of ferns and giant mosses. The fos-
sils in this stratum are, therefore, nearly all
of vegetable origin. Seams of coal, many
feet in thickness, are made up from trunks
of trees and masses of ferns piled in together
" pell-mell." The warm, carbonatious soil
of that age caused plants to grow to trees,
which now attain a height of only a few
inches. The sub-Carboniferous period is

ILLUSTATED IN CHART J,

where other vegetable forms are seen. So
plentiful are the fossils in this stratum that
we might almost say, "it is all fossils."

ioo EVOLUTIONISM.

Dr. Buckland says: "The most elaborate
imitations of living foliage upon the painted
ceilings of Italian palaces bear no compari-
son with the beauteous profusion with which
the galleries of these instructive coal mines
are overhung. The roof is covered with a
canopy of gorgeous tapestry, enriched with
festoons of graceful foliage."

Speaking of the rising and sinking of the
land during this period, Prof. Steel says*
"At one time it was lifted up to be covered
with vegetation, and at another sunk with
the ruins of the forests below the incoming
ocean to receive a deposit of sedimentary
rocks. The theater of these repeated changes
was the whole of the present coal area, and
much besides from which the coal has been
swept by subsequent denudation. During a
season of verdure a vast amount of vegetable
debris, such as leaves, limbs, fallen trunks,
etc., accumulated, only to be overwhelmed
by the flood of sand, pebbles and mud, washed
in by the rushing waters. The peat deposit
gradually changed to coal, and the sediment

V V *

THROUGH COAL AND FISH. 101

hardened to shales, sandstone or clay.
Sometimes the water became deep and clear
enough for coral or mollusks to exist, and
Nature, suiting the life to the new condition,
populated the shallow sea with swarming
millions, and there a limestone was inter-
polated. Perhaps a hundred times in the
course of the age this process was repeated,
and as many alternate layers chronicled
the changes in regular succession. In a
Nova Scotia coal bed, Lyell found, in a por-
tion 1,400 feet thick, no less than sixty-
eight levels, showing as many different old
soils of forests, one above the other, where
the trunks of trees were still furnished with
roots.

These characteristics culminated in the
Carboniferous Period of the age, being pre-
ceded by the sub-Carboniferous and followed
by the Permian, in both of which the land
of these formations was submerged by the
sea, receiving mainly rock deposits."

While we pause here, at a depth of two
miles, after having passed through some

io2 EVOLUTIONISM.

five thousand feet of coal beds, lime-stones
and other rocks of the Carboniferous Period,
let us endeavor to comprehend the wonder of
it all. We stand fairly dazed as we contem-
plate the magnitude of all this, and realize
that to-day we are warming our homes, run-
ning our locomotives and factories, and, in
fact, doing almost everything, with the
" black diamonds " which were formed from
vegetation many millions of years ago.

To think, that to-day the vibrations which
are being made visible to us in the form of
heat in yonder stove, were locked up and
imprisoned in coal ages upon ages gone by.
Coming from the sun, those vibrations were
consumed, as energy, by the rank vegetation
of the Carboniferous period, and then dragged
downward to the tomb to sleep until the
" day of resurrection " should come, and our
dark friend, Carbon, could again come forth
and restore to the atmosphere the same
energy, as he glows with joy, at his union
once more with his beloved and long-lost
bride, Oxygen.

THROUGH COAL AND FISH. 103

By calculations made by Brongniart, the
atmosphere contained from 7 to 8 per cent
of carbonic acid during the sub-Carbonifer-
ous Period. At present it contains only one
part of acid to 2,500. This shows us what
an important w^rk, in the scheme of evolu-
tion, was performed by the vegetation of
that period.

CHART K OF THE GREAT DEVONIAN AGE.

We now plunge into the remarkable strata
of the "Age of Fishes," as it is called. The
" Old Red Sandstone " system is something
like ten thousand feet in thickness, and the
entire formation is made up of the remains
of those animals, together with Crustacea,
marine plants and corals. The plants are
all of low type, the animals are all water-
breathers. But the marked feature of the
period was fish. Fish in shoals, fish in
schools, fish everywhere, swarms upon
swarms. Prof. Anderson says: "The re-
mains of Ganoid fishes are so abundant in
the yellow sandstone deposit of Dura Den,
Scotland, that a space of little more than

RBEN

fiPrr^T^^^S SH ■* ~ T -

^ a|sy

THROUGH COAL AND FISH. 105

three square yards yielded above one thou-
sand fishes, most of them quite perfect, with
scales and fins entire."

Chart K exhibits several types of the fos-
sils of the period.

A CONSIDERATION OF CHART L

leads us down through nearly a mile of
Devonian strata, where we find large num-
bers of queer shells and a very few surviv-
ors, in a modified form, of the wonderful
and numerous inhabitants of the preceding
age. The Devonian is worthy of weeks or
months of study. Entire books have been
written upon it ; but we must not spend too
much time here, as we have still greater
depths to visit. But what a weight of rock
piles above our heads — more than twenty-
one thousand feet, or about four miles of
formation.

We may stop here and contemplate it as
a vast book of history — the history of life
upon a planet. Each rocky stratum is a leaf,
and on the page is illustrated the life of the
period, with the very bodies of the animals

THROUGH COAL AND FISH. 107

who lived when that leaf was made. Again
we wonder and stand in awe of Nature's
works.

How little did the writers of the so-called
"Holy and Inspired" books of other days
imagine that beneath their feet rested a
grander book, whose rocky leaves would re-
fute their vain imaginings ; that the Truth
read therein would far transcend in wonder
all the fables of men and the marvelous
inventions of an ignorant age.

How can we poor mortals comprehend
"our place among Infinities?" How can
we expand our souls to the realization of the
marvelous grandeur of even this small por-
tion of the Majestic Universe?

LECTURE VII.
Tfte &ge of Atottttsfts*

DOWN THROUGH THE GREAT SILURIAN FORMATION.

A Great Change in Life Forms. — The Trilobite as
a King of Earth —"Am, this was Made for Me."
—Swarms of Life in Silurian Seas.— Early Life
Forms.— Great Changes of Surface.— First the
Sea, then the Land.— The Niagara Gorge only
an Incident of Geological Time.

H what feelings of emotion do

e prepare to invade the ten

lousand feet of ancient rock

-hich was the home of the Tril-

bite and his contemporaries.

How well I remember the

time, years ago, when a geological friend of

mine showed me a petrified Trilobite, and,

with awe-struck air, said : ''Just think of it !

that fellow lived away back, down in the

THE AGE OF MOLUJSKS. 109

Silurian ! " I had a vague idea, at the time,
that his "away back down" meant one or
two thousand feet downward, and perhaps a
million years back in time.

Now, I know why he spoke as he did, for
there is nothing like digging down, foot by
foot, examining the fossiliferous deposits of
the ages as we go, to realize the tremendous
facts of geological science.

CONSIDERATION OF CHART M.

The class will notice at once that a marked
change appears here in the character of the
fossils. We are in the world of Trilobites ;
those odd-shaped animals which seem to
have contained the forms, so to speak, of
all the later developments which were to
follow. The " Trinity " appears for the first
time in this animal, as he was divided into
three lobes. He foreshadowed the coats of
mail of the Age of Reptiles, the fins of the
Devonian Period, the claws of the crab fam-
ily, the eyes of the beetle family, the rudi-
ments of the vertebrates of the Cenozoic.
Some of the four hundred varieties of the

THE AGE OF MOLUJSKS. in

family could roll themselves up so as to
present an armor on every side.

Although we find many varieties of life
in the upper Silurian, and even a few stray
fishes, the principal evolution was in the
line of the Crustacea. Of these, the Trilobite
was the king. He " owned the earth," and,
could he have published books and lectured
and reasoned, he would, without doubt, have
proved, to his own satisfaction at least, that
the entire object of creation was to furnish
a large and beautiful world for the use of
Trilobites. But, not being conceited, like
the animals now standing at the head of the
evolutionary series, our modest Silurian
friend doubtless wasted but little time in
vain speculations.

One branch of the Trilobite family devel-
oped into an immense animal during the
Niagara and Salina Epochs. Each age
seems to have produced some animal re-
markable for size. The animal in this case
was a tremendous Crustacean, with the body
of a Trilobite, the tail of a reptile, and the

ii2 EVOLUTIONISM.

great claws and swimming limbs of a cross
between a sea lobster and an octopus. He
was only eight feet in length, but that is
large for that period.

Many strange shell-fish also are found.
One of them, not shown on the chart, was
over thirty feet in length, but this was only
his shell, as the animal only occupied a lim-
ited portion of his house at one time.

DOWN TO THE POTSDAM EPOCH — CHART N.

The lower part of the Silurian is simply
a continuation of what we have already
passed through.

The early part of the Silurian had devel-
oped, during four or five million years, a
swarm of life. The land, where there was
a little of it, was rocky and barren. The
sun of that period, with its hot and scorch-
ing waves of light and heat, struggled in
vain to penetrate the mists which hung over
the heated waters. But life always appears
as soon as conditions permit, so we see the
evidence of this in the fossils of the period.

At first the life forms were very simple.

-■■ .

*y*v/*\ '

>o'

&«e>

ii4 EVOLUTIONISM.

Some of the vegetable productions could
scarcely be distinguished from the rocks
upon one hand, or from animals on the
other. Some of the early forms of animal
life resembled crystals, while others looked
like plants. The "Eozoon" of the Lauren-
tian Period, or what is called the "dawn
animal," had developed into higher forms,
although they were still very elementary
structures.

Of course, as hundreds of thousands of
years grew into millions, there was abun-
dant time for the slow work of evolution to
bring about all the changes which we ob-
serve. The millions of years of the Silurian
age would, indeed, have been time enough
to bring about much greater changes of
structure in animal and vegetable life, had
it not have been that violent cataclysms
occurring on the earth's surface, upset the
work of ages, or greatly retarded it.

He^e, at a depth of twenty-seven thousand
feet, let us try to picture to ourselves the
scenery of the Silurian age. The air is

THE AGK OF MOLLUSKS. 115

damp with fogs, and thick, noxious gases
hanging over land and sea. The continents
are, as yet, new and unfinished ; as we can
dimly discern by the dim and lurid light of
the faintly visible sun. We hear no song
of bird, no hum of insect. Everywhere we
see broad, low, barren plains, rocky deserts,
with gulfs and ridges rent and upheaved
with earthquake shocks and swept by floods
of burning lava, which, from time to time,
break through the thin crust of earth.
The sea contains all there is of life. The
low, rocky beach contains no grassy patches,
no garment of verdure, being garnished
only with gray and brown sea-weeds. Every
wave strews the sand and low rocks with
shells and broken Silurian corals. Here,
where we behold this stratum of fossils,
once existed a Silurian bay, where these
lily-shaped crinoids, blossoming with life,
covered the sea bottom with a foreshadowing
of the flowers which should, in time, deck
the earth.

Then the sea retired, and sand, inter-

1 16 EVOLUTIONISM.

spersed with numerous chambered shells,
held sway for a thousand years. Again the
land sank below the waters, and the sea
contained whole shoals of Trilobites. An-
other thousand years, and their remains
were buried beneath a mass of melted rock,
overflowing from a volcanic vent. Other
thousands of years went on, and gigantic
upheavals lifted the entire country, round
about, into an almost vertical inclination.
The rock, raised above the surrounding sur-
face, became a great ridge, which acted as a
rock break-water for ten thousand years
more, perhaps. But constant wearing and
pounding of the violent waves wore it down,
and we next see a coat of shale spread
evenly over the upturned strata. Another
sinking, and this becomes the bottom of a
deep sea, where myriads of forms of life en-
joy themselves, multiply, and, anon, leave
their shells or bones to record their existence.
So the eternal fight of life and the war of
the elements goes on; first the sea, then the
earth, fire, water, earth and air; the great

t *

THE AGE OF MOLLUSKS. 117

drama of life and death, begun in the early
Silurian Sea, is played on and on while Old
Earth endures.

And we, dear friends, are playing the
same old drama — the same fight for exist-
ence — the same style of evolution ; only on
a vastly higher plane.

We look upon our New England shore
— the " rock-ribbed, iron-bound coast" of
Maine — and to us it looks like a picture of
the eternal ages ; but that coast is just as
surely sinking, year by year, as ever shore
line did in any geological age of the past.

As we look upon Lake Michigan, it ap-
pears to us as if it rolled its waves eternally
against the same sandy banks ; but the vis-
itor to Little Traverse Bay finds one beach
behind another, step after step, extending
into the woods back of Bay View and Petos-
key, and he realizes that ten thousand years
ago the waves were beating on a beach-line
three hundred or more feet above the present
level. But what is ten thousand years?
A mere nothing! My friends, the carving

n8 EVOLUTIONISM.

out of the Niagara gorge, which required
about thirty thousand years, was only an
"incident" of the Cenozoic Period — just a
little side issue — a little " scratch upon the
surface," as Prof. Agassiz remarked.

Speaking of the lower Silurian, Steel says :
"The organic remains found in this period
represent the Radiates, Mollusks and Artic-
ulates among animals, and the sea-weeds
among plants. The Trilobite was the high-
est type. Three of the four general ideas
of expressing animal life were thus simul-
taneously developed at the beginning ; the
fourth does not appear until long after.
There is, says Dana, no proof that the dry,
primordial hills bore a moss or lichen, or
that the ocean contained a single fish. No
sounds were heard in the air, save those of
inanimate Nature — the moving waters, the
tempest and the earthquake."

We are now at the bottom of the great
Paleozoic Formation — about thirty-one thou-
sand feet below the surface, or nearly six
miles. Think of it ! think of those miles

THE AGE OF MOLLUSKS. 119

of strata ! and we have not exaggerated them
in the least; we have under-estimated them
in our ideal journey, if anything. Dr. John
Pye Smith gives the thickness of the Silu-
rian alone at seventy thousand feet, in some
places, or about thirteen miles. The same
writer gives the entire fossiliferous strata at
fifty miles; but, of course, not all in one
place on the globe. He makes this aston-
ishing total by taking the maximum of each
stratum, as found in different localities, and
adding them together.

Our next lecture will take us into the
age of Protozoans, and down through the
age of Crystals.

LECTURE VIII.
Tfte E>awu of fcife*

A JOURNEY THROUGH FIFTY THOUSAND FEET OF EOZOIC
AND AZOIC ROCK.

The Age of Protozoans. — Simple Life Forms. — Or-
ganized Beings but Little Higher than Inorganic
Matter. — Chrystals and the Age of Chrystals.—
The Law of Nature is to Produce Organic Forms.
—Final Observations on The End of the Journey
Downward. — Evolution and Constant Transform-
ation in Lieu of "Creation."

E now start our descent into the
tremendous mass of rocky strata
called the Eozoic and ^fzoic.
The highest portion of the Eo-
zoic formation is called the Hu-
ronian, but that name does not
appear upon the chart we are now consid-
ering.

THE DAWN OF LIFE. 121

REFERRING TO CHART O.

The Eozoic strata contains some traces
of animal life and many traces of vegetable
productions ; but the extreme age of the de-
posit is such, that the upheavals of later
periods have destroyed and utterly oblitera-
ted nearly all traces of life of that age. Dr.
Steel says :

"The Probability of Life. — The pre-
sence of limestone, graphite and anthacite
coal would indicate the existence of life. It
would seem reasonable to suppose that veg-
etable life had the precedence, since the
animal kingdom is wholly dependent on the
vegetable for its subsistence; and that the
vegetation consisted of land plants, since
the earth would be cooled sufficiently to
admit of life sooner than the water. Geol-
ogy is, however, as yet silent on this sub-
ject, and no plants of that period are known."

Speaking of the Azoic period, M. Esquiros
says of it :

"In the Azoic rocks are conglomerates
bearing no resemblance to the beds in which

THE DAWN OF LIFE, 123

they are found. They are fragments of
other rocks, other continents, perhaps, bro-
ken up and destroyed. There is, then, little
hope of our discovering the origin of life on
the globe, since this page of the genesis of
the facts has been torn. For some years
geologists loved to rest their eyes in this
long night of ages upon an ideal limit, be-
yond which plants and animals would cease
to appear. Now, this line of demarkation
between the rocks which are without vesti-
ges of organized beings and those A^hich
contain fossils is nearly effaced among the
surrounding ruins. On the horizon of the
primitive world we see vaguely indicated a
series of other worlds which have altogether
disappeared. Perhaps it is necessary to re-
sign ourselves to the fact that the dawn of
life is lost in this silent epoch, where age
succeeds age, till they are clothed in the
garb of eternity."

About the middle of chart O you will see
a stratum of the conglomerate mentioned in
the above quotation. It represents the bro-

J24 EVOLUTIONISM.

ken rocks from many different strata, which
have been hurled from original locations,
pell-mell together, to the depth of hundreds
of feet, and then subjected to enormous
pressures, which crowded and welded them
again into solid rock.

Eozoic means "dawn of life," so that
geologists have taken that name for the un-
known thickness of rock which shows some
vestiges of life, and the term "Azoic" for the
"no-life" period below it.

Dr. Steel holds that the oldest rocks now
known on the surface of the globe are
Eozoic, as there is every probability that
none of the original crust has survived the
tremendous changes which have since oc-
curred. At any rate, whatever life did exist,
was so extremely near to "no life" that it is
difficult to distinguish it from non-living
forms.

Protozoa are called "systemless animals,"
which seem to be constructed upon no par-
ticular plan — one shape is as good as an-
other, and many of them propagate by simple

THE DAWN OF LIFE. 125

division. If a Protozoan happens to think
of two different engagements which should
be filled at one time, he wastes no time in
trying to decide which one to ignore. He
simply pulls himself apart in the middle
and serenely fills both engagements.

When some Protozoa want to eat, they
just wave the edge of their bodies until they
paddle up to some little morsel of nourish-
ment, and then proceed to wrap themselves
around it, to digest it with the outside of
themselves. Such animals have but one
organ, and that is stomach ; no outside or
inside, special, as either side can become
inside at will. In fact, the infusoria, such
as shown on the chart in a drop of water
highly magnified, are so exceedingly simple
in construction that we can regard them as
being but a trifle higher in the scale of evo-
lution than the chrystals which are shown
farther down. Even the inanimate mole-
cules of inoganic matter have their affinities,
attractions and repulsions ; and a single atom
of oxygen knows enough to pick out what it

J 26 EVOLUTIONISM.

likes from a dozen other elements ; so I fail
to see any " missing link " between the pro-
toplasmic Zoophite and the more inorganic
protoplasm.

It seems to me that Nature sets to work
the moment she has any chance whatever,
and goes to constructing organized forms.
If conditions are unfavorable for vegetable
or animal life, she makes chrystals ; so we
see that the lowest regular forms are chrys-
tals. When the melted interior of the earth
is thrown out and confined in some suitable
place, the melted rock will form into col-
umns, with regular sides. In some parts of
the earth there are immense quantities of
these basaltic columns. Fingal's Cave is a
noted example of this formation.

Here, where we are, in strata more than
twenty million years of age, " ripple marks "
have been found stereotyped on the rock,
which prove that waves rolled upon the
shore, under the action of the wind, the
same as to-day.

Chart O covers fifty thousand feet of

THE DAWN OF LIFE. 127

strata, and you must take this into consid-
eration in observing it ; for some of these
charts cover only a few hundred feet.

The bottom of the Laurentian takes us to
where the rocks are quite hot. In fact, we
could not go down into a hole, as far as this,
without being burned to a crisp.

In this journey we have penetrated deeply
into the bosom of Mother Earth, in an ideal
way. In reality, the geologist makes his
discoveries on the top of the ground, in
most cases, or near the top, upon the up-
turned edges of the strata.

In some parts of the Alleghanies the up-
turned strata is exposed for twelve miles, so
that we can trace formation after formation,
as we have theoretically traced them in this
course of lectures.

In some places the melted rock has welled
up from some tremendous volcano or other
vent, and has covered great regions all over
to a depth of thousands of feet. Colorado
and some parts of other States are covered,
more or less, with such a deposit.

128 EVOLUTIONISM.

The Colorado River has cut its way, inch
by inch, down through this deposit of hard-
ened lava a mile deep. Yet all this erosion
was but an "incident" in the historical
geology of our continent.

But few persons, if any, are capable of
forming any sort of a conception of the
enormous work of the elements in this very
erosion. Entire mountain chains have been
worn down to a level, and horizontal strata
deposited upon the upturned edges, thus
left on the surface. In some places in Penn-
sylvania great sections of the country have
been turned up, like a great fold, ten thou-
sand feet in the air, to be afterwards slowly
worn and ground down by the action of
water and ice, until the whole was again
reduced to a level.

Prof. Lesley says, in speaking of such
wonderful works:

"Near Chanibersburg, Pa., there is a fault
twenty miles in length, and the depth of the
dislocation is 20,000 feet ; and yet a man
can stand with one foot on one side of this

THE DAWN OF LIFE. 129

fracture and the other foot on the other side.
What has become, then, of this immense
mass of material 20,000 feet in height? It
must have been swept into the Atlantic by
the denuding flood. If this had not been
done, a bold precipice would have stood
there nearly four miles in height and twenty
miles in length. Long ages must have been
required for water to effect such a denu-
dation."

Think of it! A fault, or dislocation of
strata, nearly four miles in vertical height!
Mount Washington seems like something
of an elevation, as it towers far above the
surrounding mountains; yet that is only
about one mile in height above sea level.

Just imagine a convulsion of the earth
capable of lifting a mass of rock, like a
whole county or state, four miles upward!
Beside this Mt. Washington is a mole hill.

We have now reached the unstratified
rocks, which extend down to the melted
interior of our globe, unless there is a space
between the outer shell, and a white-hot ball

iyj EVOLUTIONISM.

of melted matter revolving free in the cen-
ter. There are many reasons for believing
that such is the case, but we will not go
into that discussion at present.

In this fascinating journey, we have seen
the character of the denizens of the earth
gradually changing from man, with his
intelligence of a high order, down to the
lowest conceivable forms. We have seen
the highly complicated and grandly differ-
entiated parts of physical structure, slowly
changing, step by step, until we got to
where but one organ constituted the whole
animal — the single organ of assimilation
and nutrition. What must we conclude?
Simply that mind and body, soul and spirit,
must have evoluted together, step by step,
through all the ages. That, just as the
humble Trilobite was the highest result of
the tremendous duration of the Silurian
age, so man is the highest result of all the
ages of geological history.

It is idle, and worse than idle, to talk of
"creations " in a world where everything
shows transformations only.

THE DAWN OF LIFE. 131

Not one human being ever saw an organ-
ized form on this planet that had not devel-
oped exactly according to the laws of evolu-
tion from preceding forms. Not a place can
be found where inorganic matter has been
taken by any Supernatural Being, and fash-
ioned into a thing of life.

Millions of lower forms of life lead up to
each high organism found on our globe.

No place can be found where, in all the
realms of Nature, a single act of " special
creation" has been performed; yet we see
everywhere the proof of evolution going on
forever and forever.

LECTURE IX.
Evofntion of Species*

EXAMINATION OF DIFFERENTIATION AND DEVELOPMENT FROM
EXISTING SPECIES.

Evolution all along the Line.— Linking of Species.
—Vegetation Approaches the Lower Animal Liee.
—Life Forms that are Nearly Inorganic. — Chart
of Special Links.— Relatives of Various Domes-
tic Animals.— The Quadrumana and Their Ap-
proach to Humanity.

pursuit of the facts relating to
Evolution, we are not obliged, by
r means, to confine ourselves to
geological eras of the past. We
r e around us, to-day, thousands
„ r jn thousands of life forms which
illustrate the wonderful law of evolutionary
progress. This illustration not only ex-
tends throughout all the domain of animal

EVOLUTION OF SPECIES. 133

life, but we trace it downward through the
myriad forms of vegetable existences.

Evolution is not only going on among
the higher forms of life, but we have every
reason to believe that steady progression is
going on all along the line, from the atom
upward. This means that, under proper
conditions, protoplasmic life will develop
from aggregated atomic and molecular com-
binations to-day, as well as in former eras.
Not only this, but that they are doing so,
all the time, and that they are advancing
from protoplasmic to higher forms.

Mammals are differentiating gradually,
and new varieties are coming into existence.
In the vegetable kingdom the progression
goes on in full as marked a manner. When
we descend, even to the infinitesimal vege-
table and animal life forms, only visible
under the microscope, science has demon-
strated that a change is going on. New
bacteria, new infusoria and microbes are
developing. That is why new diseases ap-
pear from age to age, and diseases of former

154 EVOLUTIONISM.

periods either disappear or change greatly
in virulence and general character. Fruits,
flowers, shrubs, trees, grains, bulbs, roots,
seeds, nuts, and all forms of vegetable life,
are undergoing differentiation and evolution.
This being the case, we would naturally
conclude that there should be a correspon-
dence between the various branches of life
representatives — that they would be united
by a general tie, as we noticed that the
planets of our solar system were. In other
words, we might look for intermediate links
between the various species, orders, classes
and branches.

Zoology and Botany demonstrate that our
expectations are abundantly realized; for
we find, not only all species of animal life,
grading to each other by easy stages ; all
species of vegetation approaching each other
by means of intermediate forms ; but even
the two great divisions themselves approach
each other in the Protozoa, and even in
much higher life forms, so nearly as to al-
most, if not quite, defy separation.

136 EVOLUTIONISM.

We shall sp£ak more particularly of some
of these links farther along.

Chart 25 shows a number of forms, all
of which belong to the Animal Kingdom;
yet they nearly all resemble plants and
flowers. Some of them, when alive, resem-
ble plants, and when dead they look like
stone. The Rhizopod, near the center of
the chart, is the strange little " any-shaped"
animal, which we have talked of many times.
He is all stomach, outside and in. He is
so nearly a simple lump of " inorganic pro-
toplasm" that scientific men were obliged
to examine him attentively, a long while,
before discovering his true place in nature.

Chart 26 advances us another step, and
introduces a few of the thousands of strange
and remarkable forms nearly allied to those
in the preceding chart. The Jelly-fish is a
queer animal, which is so nearly composed
of water that to dry him out leaves, practi-
cally, nothing. He is really a mass of jelly.

The Basket-fish is another strange ani-
mal, forming a link between Star-fish, Jelly-
fish and. Cuttle-fish.

138 EVOLUTIONISM.

Chart 26 contains many interesting life
forms. To go on and give the hundreds of
graduated links between classes of animals,
would be too great a task, in this kind of a
work, for they are linked together by thou-
sands of almost insensible gradings, where
only a slight differentiation exists.

* Chart 27 illustrates a very few of the
numerous links between branches of the
"tree of life." The Pipe-fish is a snake,
but, having the gills of a fish, becomes a
fish. The Eel is nearly like a water-snake ;
then the Mud-eel, or Siren, has the body of
a snake, the gills of a fish, and one pair of
legs near the head, thus establishing an ap-
proach to the alligator tribe. One fish, the
Barramunda, violates all rules of fishdom
by habitually crawling out on the land to
sun himself and procure a change of diet.

The horned toad has characteristics of
several higher, as well as lower, animals
than himself, so he links several classes.

The flying fish gives a hint of the birds,
to come much higher in the scale, while the

140 EVOLUTIONISM.

real bird, the Apteryx, stands upright, has
absolutely no wings, and has a body covered
with hair like the ordinary quadrupeds.
On the other hand, one of the most unique
links known is the Duckbill, or Water Mole.
He is claimed to be a connecting link, with-
out any dispute, between birds and mammals.

The bill of a duck is attached to the body
of an otter, with the usual hairy covering of
most mammals. He has spurs on the inside
of his ankles, exactly like a male domestic
fowl. He has an inner coating of fine,
feathery hair, impervious to water. His
fore feet are padded, and have a web-like
attachment, which can be folded up at will.
His hind feet are like the feet of a goose,
except the nails are protruded beyond, like
the foot of a quadruped, as he is. He dives
for his food, in the same manner as a duck.

The head shown in the chart is that of a
Lemur, an animal of Madagascar, which
forms a sort of link between the lower quad-
rupeds and the Quadrumana.

The Spider Monkey forms another link

EVOLUTION OF SPECIES. 141

in the rising chain, with his graceful tail,
partly smooth and partly bushy. He seems ,
a cross between two or three orders of
quadrupeds.

The great Vampire Bat, a swiftly flying
animal, is neither a biped or a quadruped,
bird, fish or fowl. His arms are wings, his
feet are hands and wings ; his body is cov-
ered with fur. , He has a head like a mouse,
or a fox. The big-eared Bat has tusks like
a wild boar. All the bats of our time are,
pigmy descendants of our giant friend, the
Pterodactyl, of geology, with a head like a
crocodile. (See D, Chart 36.)

The Flying Squirrel and the Flying Fox
are other types which exhibit the apparent
evolution of certain extreme forms toward
other classes.

The Orang Outang is another and higher
step upward in the chain of evolution, and
he leads us well up toward the lowest sava-
ges among men.

Among other remarkable mixings of
characteristics, we might notice the Ceta-

142 EVOLUTIONISM.

cea. Whales look like fishes, swim like
fishes; yet they are not fishes, but regular
carnivorous Mammals. It is not generally
known that a whale has shoulder-blades,
humerus, radius, wrist-bones and five fingers.
That it nurses its young, and is an air-
breathing animal, is more generally known.
The Manatee, or sea-cow, adds to the other
peculiarities, that of having its body partially
covered with hair.

If we could picture a continuous succes-
sion of plants from the lowest forms up, step
by step, to the highest, and then branch off
to the animal kingdom, and from the lowest
in that, go on, step by step, in each case
giving the next highest, or nearest; then
going on up to the lowest undeveloped sav-
age, and grading men, by easy differences,
until we came to the highest and grandest
Caucasian, you would be surprised to note
the very small changes necessary in any
portion of the chain. But such an exhibit
is beyond our present powers, as there would
need to be more than a thousand forms in

144 EVOLUTIONISM.

the great chain. In lieu of such an illus-
tration, we have arranged plates containing
the relatives, near and distant, of various
well known domestic animals.

Chart No. 28 gives a few of the quite
numerous relatives of the Sheep. It would
take three such charts to show his wild rel-
atives, and then we would not know where
to draw the line. Besides this, we could
give a chart exhibiting the changes, under
domestic evolution, of the sheep himself,
which would show wonderful differentiation.

Chart No. 29 shows the domestic Cow
and her relatives, leaving out many of them.
The foot of the Llama is given to show how
evolution produces a pad to protect the foot,
and we see how that pad becomes larger and
thicker under such conditions as the Camel
is placed under, he being obliged to walk
upon hot and burning desert sands.

Chart No. 30 shows us the common, do-
mestic Cat, and some of her numerous rela-
tives. There is a very great difference dis-
cernable between a common Cat and the

146 EVOLUTIONISM.

Lordly Lion ; yet they are all of one family,
with links between them, all through the
chain. The adult beasts do not bear much
resemblance to each other; but their young
exhibit the family likeness remarkably.
Young Wild-cats, Leopards, Panthers, Ti-
gers, Pumas, Jaguars and Lions all resem-
ble kittens, and, when a few days old, play
about their mothers and act exactly like
those beautiful household pets.

Chart No. 31 is designed to show the
domestic Dog and some of his relatives, near
and more remote. The various species of
wolves are nearest to the dog in relation-
ship. Foxes, and a number of other ani-
mals, are omitted, in order to exhibit the
co-ordinating species to a greater distance.
Thus, the Prairie Dog is not a member of
the same order, even ; neither is the gopher,
yet there are intermediate links all the way
between the dog and them.

The Dog family seems capable of a large
amount of differentiation under intelligent
cultivation. If we should form a chart with

148 EVOLUTIONISM.

nothing but dogs exhibited, the wonderful
differences between the various specimens
would be almost as great as between animals
of entirely different orders. Contrast an
English Pug with a Greyhound; a Spitz
with the noble Newfoundland; a Black and
Tan with a St. Bernard; or contrast all of
them, one with another, and the effect of
breeding and evolution will be manifested.
But the wonderful varieties found in dogs
could be duplicated, probably, with any ani-
mal known to us, provided men found it
worth their time and attention to breed
them carefully.

Horses are so well known that the stu-
dent will experience no difficulty in calling
to mind the marvelous development made,
even in our own short lives. Think of the
evolution in trotting horses, where the 2:40
record of forty years ago has been gradually
reduced to 2:07. Another century will see
the record brought down to less than two
minutes.

150 EVOLUTIONISM.

The beautiful Zebra is a wild member
of the horse family ; so, also, is the wild Ass.

Chart No. 32 exhibits a few of the many-
relatives of the Chimpanzee. There are a
large number of them, ranging from animals
having the general form of quadrupeds,
with hands instead of feet, up to the higher
branches of the quadrumanna, where the
form and general carriage is a good imita-
tion of man. There are seventeen species
of the Quadrumana, forming a ladder of
development clear from the order of Carniv-
ora, which mostly consists of quadrupeds,
up to the lowest varieties of men.

An examination of Chart 32 will give you
an idea of the chain of species, although the
following links are not in the illustration :
Specter, Saki, Mandrill, Babboon, Rhesus
Monkey, Barbary Ape, Proboscis Monkey
and Sacred Monkey. All of the above
named possess many human characteristics.
The bodies of all the quadrumana are cov-
ered with hair, which serves as a natural
protection, in lieu of clothing.

152 EVOLUTIONISM.

The law of development is such that cov-
erings of hair, feathers, and everything
which protects the body, change to suit
environments. Take the dog as a sample :
The great dogs of Greenland and Russia
have heavy, shaggy coats, while the hot
climate of Mexico and Central America has
developed a hairless dog.

It is a well known fact that men who
have been cast away on uninhabited islands,
and have thus became " wild men," have be-
come covered with a heavy coat of hair
within a few years.

If such a change would come about in
one generation, what might we not expect
in a thousand years?

In the lower right-hand corner of the
chart the face of a gorilla, of the wildest and
most untamable type, is shown, together
with an arm and hand of the same beast.
One can see, at a glance, that this fellow
would need a great many thousands of years'
development to make a Mystic of him. His
spiritual and intellectual faculties are very

EVOLUTION OF SPECIES.

153

low, indeed; but his self-esteem is higher,
and his stubborn, war-like, destructive and
animal propensities are highly developed in
comparison.

Many of the species of Quadrumana pos-
sess long hair about the head, extending
under the chin, in excellent imitation of the
hair and beard of human males. Note the
Bear Howler, Gibbon, Siamang, Black-faced
Monkey and Gueuon. The Marmoset shows
an earlier and more exaggerated form of
the same appendages.

Having conducted our inquiry, step by
step, up to the borderland of humanity, we
will stop here and rest until our next les-
son, when we shall take up man, himself,
and " weigh him in the balance " as one of
the orders resulting from this wondrous
chain of evolution.

LECTURE X.
Tfte Ascent of Mam

THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLIGENCE UNDER THE GEN Eft At
LAW OF EVOLUTION.

The Great Error of Theology.— Man Not in a
Degenerate State.— More Enlightened To-Day
than Ever Before in History.— The Line of In-
tellectual . Development. — Persistence of the
Quintuple Expression. — Our Little Ancestor of
the Eocene.

of the greatest errors in

ogy, aside from the funda-

1 error of Special Creations,

supposition that men were

gh, pure, noble and perfect

=wit, originally, and have reached

their present "low and degraded" condition

through "falling from grace."

EVOLUTION OF SPECIES. 155

The theory involves not only a double
falsehood, but a perfect mass of absurdities >
to -support it. The first false idea is that
men ever were perfect, or anywhere near
perfect; and the second, that men are worse
now or more degraded than in former ages.
All history tends to refute both of the sup-
positions. The further back we go into the
history df any nation, the more barbarous,
ignorant, uninventive, and bloodthirsty we
find them. How long ago was it when our
own boasted civilized Anglo-Saxons were
a fighting, murdering hoard of robbers and
pirates ? Do we have to go very far back to
find our ancestors burning innocent women,
under the plea of their being witches?
Even the history, written by themselves, of
" God's chosen people," exhibits them as but
little better than an organized band of mur-
derers and robbers. This same people are,
to-day, among our most law abiding, only
seeking wealth through commercial advan-
tage. No, there is no degeneration to be
found, except in limited cases, or waves.

156 EVOLUTIONISM.

The general trend of all humanity has
been upward.

The believers in revealed religions con-
sider that the world is more wicked and
" fallen," because it has advanced and evo-
luted out of their dogmas. The back-woods
"Cracker" of Georgia is yet intensely re-
ligious and superstitious. The cultured cit-
izens of Paris, Berlin, London, New York or
Chicago are not overburdened with supersti-
tion. But the former is a relic of a past
age of ignorance, while the latter are repre-
sentatives of the world of modern thought.
The Church points to them as examples
of degeneracy.

It is a well known fact that large cities
show a preponderance of crime ; but that is
easily accounted for in several ways :

First. Large aggregations of people with-
in small area of territory afford much greater
opportunities for the commission of crime.

Second. The better opportunities for the
commission of crime, and subsequent es-
cape, is an attraction to criminals, of all
grades, to operate in large cities.

THE ASCENT OF MAN. 157

Third. Crimes committed in one large
city of, say, two million inhabitants, make
a much greater showing than the same
number committed among two million of
people scattered throughout an extensive
country territory.

Fourth. Large cities are supplied with
smart, well paid reporters, who make it a busi-
ness to report and fully exploit all misdoings.

Therefore, it is customary to point to
large cities as " sinks of iniquity," as moral
cess-pools forsaken by the Deity. Yet, in
those very cities, thousands of costly church
edifices point the way to the supposed
Heaven above, and thousands of high sala-
ried ministers weekly preach the plan of
salvation, which is "free" — of taxation.

The people of to-day are more refined^
better educated, more inventive, more toler-
ant, less conceited, and actually more truly
religious than those of any other epoch
within our historical reach.

How came man to be higher developed
than any other animal on the earth?

158 EVOLUTIONISM.

This is a pertinent question, and we shall
attempt to answer it in accordance with the
natural law.

In the first place, man is not a higher
development, only in one thing, and that is
intellect. The elephant, mammoth, whale,
and hundreds of other animals, have gone
far beyond man in bulk, as well as strength.
The fish can beat him in swimming, the
bird in flying, the horse in running, the dog
in scenting, the eagle in seeing, the gopher
in digging, the gorilla in fighting. But, in
spite of all this development, in certain
ways man is master of all, entirely through
his intellect. Man is the most helpless of
all animals, yet he masters all others. He
makes a machine stronger than the mam-
moth; his steamer outswims the whale; his
telescope and microscope outsees the eagle ;
his firearms enable him to outfight the fero-
cious gorilla, and so on through all the list.
It is true that, in some things, the lower
animals still have the advantage; for in-
stance, the bird in flying, or the dog in fol-

THE ASCENT OF MAN. 159

lowing a scent ; but these are merely minor
and special qualities.

So marked is man's intellectual develop-
ment beyond that of all other organized
beings on the earth, that he has considered
himself a sort of " special creation " apart
from the rest of the animals. He has
looked upon himself as a higher being, with
a " God-given intelligence" given to him in
some occult way from outside. This is
a wholly gratuitous assumption, which can-
not stand the light of true science one mo-
ment. The fact that man has developed
one faculty — the brain — far beyond that of
any other animal, does not prove him to be
the special pet of some high and mighty
being, any more than the development of a
shell a foot thick on the Armadillo; or of
tusks thirteen feet long and weighing five
hundred pounds, on the ancient elephant;
or the beautiful fur on the seal; or the
magnificent plumage on a bird or a butter-
fly, proves those animals to be special ob-
jects of some Being's care.

i6o EVOLUTIONISM.

The fact is, that man is nothing but a
continuation of development. His frame is
just like the frame of other mammals ; his
blood, flesh, hair, skin, nails, internal or-
gans, and all parts of him, are on the same
general plan, made from the same chemical
combinations, subject to birth, growth and
decay, exactly as is the case with all the
others.

Now, we can safely assume that, as man
possesses the one superior quality, called
intellect, above other animals, there must
be a reason for it, and that reason we have
a right to look for.

The entire secret of development comes
from the law of necessity — the struggle for
existence. The immortal Darwin discov-
ered this law, and other grand men have re-
affirmed it time and again. But there are
some minor branches of this law that have
not been touched upon very much. One is,
that animals are constantly developing be-
yond the line that leads to intelligence;
that is, they have become possessed of qual-

THE ASCENT OF MAN. 161

ities which have enabled them to exist and
hold their own against other animals and
against all their environments.

In all such cases, the development of
intellect has been stopped. Every kind of
evolution must have a reason for it. Every
organ must have a use, or it would never
develop. And, per contra, when an organ
ceases to be of utility it tends to disappear
gradually.

We have seen, in our journey into the
earth, how the little hoofs of the Tertiary
horse became gradually extinct, until that
animal has but one toe on each foot. When
the animal was obliged to traverse bogs and
quagmires during that early period he had
use for those other toes, as they prevented
his sinking into the mire. As the earth
grew drier and harder he had less use for
them, and they therefore grew smaller and
smaller until they disappeared. The horse
was a small, five-toed animal at the same
time that the progenitor of man was pos-
sessed of the same. In fact, there was but

162 EVOLUTIONISM.

little difference, if any, at the beginning of
the Eocene, between the two animals.

Developing from the lizards of the pre-
ceding ages, the first mammals naturally
possessed the five-toed form, which has so
persisted through ages past.

Chart No. 33 is designed to exhibit the
line of development through which the arm,
wrist, hand and fingers have passed. The
same is also true of the feet. You cannot
help but see that the paddle of the whale
is related to the hand or foot of man, as well
as many other animals.

We can trace this quintuple formation
down through lizards, frogs, turtles and
bats, until we find, as it were, but crude
beginnings in much lower animals. Even
away down in the Silurian period we find
faint glimmerings in some of the differen-
tiations of the Trilobite. Fiddler crabs,
loligo squids, and even the low-down spiru-
las, have the " five-on-a-side " formation.
So we conclude that five is a natural physi-
cal number, as is ten, and that it has per-

i64 EVOLUTIONISM.

sisted all these ages, and culminated in
man, because it is a good and useful num-
ber to possess of such valuable members as
fingers, toes, claws, etc. If more such mem-
bers had been needed, more would, probably,
have been developed. If less would have
served, one or more would have became
extinct.

We can see, in the case of Man and the
Quadrumana, that the fourth finger, which
is not called upon to act so strongly in
grasping, as it does not come readily against
the force of the thumb, has degenerated in
size, and is called, everywhere, the "little
finger." The toes have degenerated, in
regular order, under the same conditions,
varied much, however, in man. I doubt
very much whether mankind will have
much of any toes, worth speaking of, two
thousand years from now. If they do have,
it will be because a large portion of man-
kind go bare-footed, or wear sandals.

The remnants of the hair, which we in-
herited from the lower animals, yet remains

THE ASCENT OF MAN. 165

upon our bodies in a stunted form ; and it
is a well known fact that the practice of
cutting the hair short upon the heads of
men is gradually operating to make them
thin haired and bald headed In nations
where this practice is not followed, the males
have as thick and heavy hair as the females.
Now, what are we to conclude? Simply
that man has developed through a line of
ancestors, whose various members have been
obliged to use intelligence in order to exist.
That those branches from this line which
were able to develop some organ or organs,
qualities or surroundings, which would en-
able them to exist with but little intellectual
development, have " fallen by the wayside,"
as far as intellect is concerned. This is not
only a. reasonable view, but it is borne out
by all the facts observable. It is even true
when applied to men at present on the earth.
Where do we find the men of brains, of
inventive genius, of intellectual power and
growth? Clearly, in those parts of the
globe where man must use such qualities

166 EVOLUTIONISM.

to succeed in life, against the vast competi-
tion of others.

The hustling New Englander, the rush-
ing Middle State Yankee, the Western
"rustler," the hardy and hard-headed En-
glishman, Irishman, Scotchman, French-
man, and many others along the line of the
Temperate Zone, all bear evidence to the
effect of climatic conditions. If men had
been kept in a " Garden of Eden " through
all the past ages they would have been un-
intellectual " chumps." Had all the men of
the earth lived along the equator, we would
have been pounding corn in a hollow stone
yet, in place of running it through the
magnificent mills we now possess.

When our little forefather began to fight
the battle of life, many ages ago, he found
himself almost naked and exposed to the
attacks of mighty mailed beasts, who roamed
the land over and crashed through cane-
brakes and brush, ready to devour any poor
beast who chanced in their way. With
such surroundings, our little ancestor said,

THE ASCENT OF MAN. 167

in his small mind, "I will climb a tree."
In doing this little act he nsed his intelli-
gence, and found that he had left his ene-
mies mostly behind him on the ground.
But he must still guard himself from the
climbing reptiles, and even other species
which had learned to fly. Some of these
had enormous eyes, with which they could
see at night. Against such enemies our
little friend was obliged to hang on, hand
and foot, and even bring his tail into use.
He had, also, to keep a bright lookout ; he
must be ready to hide, or to run from tree
to tree, in order to outwit his powerful foes.
In this manner he developed " sharpness "
and cunning — qualities so prominent in
many of the quadrumana. At the same
time, his feet became gradually developed
into " hands," while his tail grew long, slim,
strong and pliable. Thus we see our ances-
tor gradually drawing away from the " pro-
tected" animals, for which Nature had ap-
parently done so much, and receiving for his
departure the gift of increased brain.

1 68

EVOLUTIONISM.

The same law holds ever thus. The
trials and tribulations through which we
pass, although seeming hardships, are, in
reality, the elevators of mankind.

Those who bask in the sunlight of pros-
perity, are not advancing in the Soul-Light
as they would under more adverse conditions.

This is the great " Law of Compensation,"
which, like the Correlation of Forces, ever
preserves the balance of the Scales of the
Infinite.

LECTURE XI.
Strttctflraf ©evetoptnettt*

DIFFERENTIATION OF PARTS AND ORGANS UNDER ENVIRON-
MENT.

Comparative Anatomy. — The Elevation of the Quad-
rumana. — Our Ancient Ancestor. — The Departure
in Two Different Lines. — Development in Other
Directions.— Degeneration and Extinction of
Species. — Survival of the Fittest.— Embryology
Illustrated.— Evolutionism the Grandest View
of Life.

:eding lecture left our

, the monkey, developing

ain and wits in the battle

le soon became an expert

ig, and swinging himself

is. But this exercise had

its influence on his structural development,

for, while his legs remained about the same,

his arms lengthened gradually, until, when

170 EVOLUTIONISM.

standing nearly upright, his hands would
touch the ground.

I wish to call your attention to Chart 34,
where you will observe the length of the
arms of the orang, and note their wonderful
development. The head of the same animal
can be seen at the bottom of Chart 32, and
you will readily see that he . is one who is
fully able to defend himself on the ground.
Indeed, that is just what he did do. He
disdained to climb trees, or to flee from his
enemies ; so, as a natural consequence, he
developed his fighting qualities, ferocity and
strength, at the expense of his brains, and
the result is seen in his low, retreating fore-
head and his brutish eyes and jaws.

But other members of the quadrumana
developed in other directions. Some man-
aged to reside where conditions were more
favorable to quiet life ; they were therefore
able to leave the trees and pass much time
upon the ground. The effect of this is seen
in the Chimpanzee, by a shortening of the
arms. This change of structure went on

\J2 EVOLUTIONISM.

until its culmination in man; where the
arms are again normal, for they are the
same length as the legs.

The comparative anatomy illustrated in
Chart 34 is well worth studying. Note the
separation of the bones in the arms and legs,
especially developed in the forearms of the
three skeletons we have been considering.
The same split formation will be found also
in the bird's wing, the turtle, frog, whale,
dog, alligator, and many other animals.
Note the "arm and hand" of a Manatee,
the gigantic sea mammal, and you will at
once see how very short and dwarfed they
are, in comparison with the length of the
body of the animal ; while, at the same time,
they are thick and strong. It is easy to see
why this is. Living in the water, the pro-
genitors of the sea cow had nothing what-
ever to " stretch " or lengthen the arms, while
the resistance of the water to them, as "pad-
dles," constantly tended to strengthen them.

Now let us go back to the progenitor of
that noble animal, the horse, who lived co-

STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 173

tetnporaneously with our forefather. Instead
of climbing a tree, Mr. Equus said, " I will
run away from danger," which he proceeded
to do. Right there was a dividing line on
intellectual and structural development. It
was very slight at first, but it led to mighty
changes later on. To run away from dan-
ger is an impulse, with but little reason
connected with it ; but to remain on the spot
and outwit the enemy is an act of reason.

From that dividing point came the two
great branches which have been growing
further apart ever since. One gave us a
long line of lives, extending up to man;
the other gave us a line equally as long,
extending up to the horse. All the mem-
bers of the latter, as well of its branches >
have been noted for their fleetness, grace>
beauty and gentleness. The horse is a
"good" animal. He does not plot nor seek
to kill other animals ; but he has developed
"out of the line of intellect."

The Camel is another animal whose anat-
omy corresponds with that of the other

174 EVOLUTIONISM.

quadrupeds. But he came up through a
line which were, evidently, subject to ad-
verse conditions as to food and water, while
he was forced to travel upon hot sands.
Instead of hoofs, he has pads on his feet.
He has developed a large hump, where fat
is stored up, to draw upon when he is with-
out food ; and he is provided with an extra
water stomach to hold water for his use
when he cannot get a supply of it as needed.
All these little useful "extras" possessed
by the Camel, effect his anatomical structure
but little, for they are all in the fleshy parts.
See chart 34.

The Elephant illustrates another phase
of development, where the tendency was
toward massiveness. He possesses a heavy
frame-work, a thick skin, and was able to
escape his enemies without climbing, run-
ning or jumping. So his line developed
enormous tusks for use and defense, and a
long, flexible nose, which we call a "trunk,"
which is of the greatest service to this order
of animals. What the arm and hand is to

STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 175

man, the trunk is to an elephant. With
his short, thick neck and ungainly body,
he would be helpless without that useful
appendage. The development of the pro-
boscis, in that class of animals, dates back
to the Age of Reptiles.

The Lion exhibits another style of devel-
opment, where cunning, strength, agility
and ferocity, with a love of blood, combined
to produce the frame seen in chart 34.
Cover that frame with muscles as strong as
steel wires, and you have the murderous,
treacherous member of the cat family.
There are many relatives, some being mere-
ly sneaks, with but little courage.

In the family Avis we have another de-
parture from the intelligent line. Birds
developed the quality of flying, which raised
them at once above the dangers on the
earth's surface. The consequence was that
all their progression went toward wing
power, guiding themselves, and in rapidity
of motion through the air. Some of the
branches did not attain all these qualities.

176 EVOLUTIONISM.

Some failed to develop wings, because their
bodies became so fat and heavy that they
were too lazy to fly. So their " arms " be-
came extinct, instead of developing into
wings. The bird family also produced a
peculiar arrangement of foot and toes, by
which they are enabled to hold on to a limb
while asleep. The hands of the quadrumana
would be useless for such a purpose.

Some birds took to the water, so we find
another numerous family of them, consist-
ing of many species, provided with web-feet
for swimming on the surface. Others are
provided with long legs for wading in the
water. The entire family of birds have
gone out of the regular line of intelligent
evolution, because they are in a condition
where they do not require much reason in
order to exist.

We could go on and take up orders and
species, one by one, and particularly exam-
ine the structural changes brought about in
each, through evolution under environment.
But the task is too great. The same gen-
eral laws obtain throughout.

STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 177

You can understand the causes operating
to lengthen the neck and fore legs of the
Giraffe, the nose of the short necked Tapir,
of the Eocene age, until it became the short
trunk of the great beast of the Pleiocene,
and the longer trunk of the Elephant of
the Post Tertiary Period. You can under-
stand how the great Saurians came out
upon the land, and increased the length
and strength of their legs by use, while
their unwieldy tails grew smaller and
lighter from age to age. You can under-
stand how the pairs of short legs of the
Congo snake, removed far from each other,
were but rudimentary forms, which eventu-
ally led to the more fully developed limbs
of the many tribes of lizards ; how the thick
fish became a slim eel, a snake a siren, a
Congo snake a crawling lizard and a walk-
ing dry-land "Giant Lizard," nearly in the
form of a mammal quadruped.

A CONSIDERATION OF CHART 35.

Some of these things can be better under-
stood, perhaps, by referring to the chart.

STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 179

Compare the jumping Kangaroo with the
Giraffe, and notice the difference in the de-
velopment of the neck and fore legs. The
giant lizards shown in chart 35 are the ter-
rible monsters alluded to above, and also in
the fifth lecture. (See page 87). The
Tapir shown is of the Eocene. The other
monster, below him, is from the Pleiocene.
He is to be found on page 74, in his place
in the formation.

On chart 35 we have a representation of
the strange animal called the "walking
stick." He has developed a general form,
corresponding to a piece of dead branch.
As he is very sluggish in his motions, it
requires a sharp sight to detect him among
the small limbs of a bush or tree; hence he
escapes with his life from the numerous
birds, who would gladly "invite him to
dinner." There are a great many animals
possessing this peculiar style of protection
from enemies. The tree toad, the chame-
leon, and large numbers of reptiles and in-
sects, as well as many kinds of birds, have

180 EVOLUTIONISM.

developed such qualities. Some of them
have the strange property of changing color,
to conform to their surroundings. Some
animals change periodically, so as to become
white in the winter and gray in the summer.

All these peculiarities have been brought
about under the law of the "survival of the
fittest." The species which possess any
peculiarity which gives them an advantage
in sustaining themselves against antagoniz-
ing environments, will survive ; while those
not developing such qualities will gradually
perish, or "run out."

We can see this effect going on all abont
us, even among the races of men. The
Indian tribes of America are becoming ex-
tinct under this law. The whites, being
possessed of superior intelligence, are able
to run out the native tribes. The Indian,
with all his natural bravery and cunning,
is no match for the white man's improved
firearms and training.

The natural result can be foreseen. The
wild buffalo is becoming extinct, from his

STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 181

contact with man — a superior animal. The
great wingless bird of the last century has
become extinct.

DEGENERATION OF SPECIES.

Some plants and animals, instead of be-
coming extinct, or, on the other hand, pro-
gressing to some higher form of life, seem
to retrogress in size and, perhaps, in func-
tions. It is not so certain as to the latter,
however. It is actually known, though,
that some animals, like the hermet crab,
have degenerated very greatly in structure,
through leading an idle and aimless life.
You remember the Trilobite of the Silurian?
Well, you will be surprised, perhaps, when
I tell you that one branch of that ancient
family, who once "ruled the earth," has de-
generated to the common sand flea. There
were good reasons for this, of course, and
we do not know, really, whether his changes
are a retrogression or an advance. We will
show you his picture in the next chart, No.
36, so that you can judge for yourselves.
Section A shows the three forms, and you

. I

STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 185

can see how some peculiar characteristics
have remained, down to this time.

I do not propose, in this series of lectures,
to go into the great field of Embryology.
That field is full of wonderful proofs of evo-
lution ; although it is a branch which is not
adapted to a work of this character. But I
want to touch upon it a little.

There is a strange law, by which the
skilled scientist can "follow back," as we
might say, into the line of development
through which animals have passed in their
upward march, by observing the different
phases undergone by them from the eggs
to the fully developed animals. Section B
shows the changes in the form of a frog
from the time of hatching from the egg.
The eggs of a frog cannot be distinguished
from the eggs of a number of other animals,
and its increase in size, and hatching, re-
sembles the same process which takes place
with the ovum of much higher animals.
But the frog, being an organization low in
the scale of development, is launched di-

i«4 EVOLUTIONISM.

rectly into life in the form seen at the left.
Right here we see a strange thing. The
young tadpole is provided with air-breath-
ing, external gills, corresponding to the
Proteus and that class of Amphibia. But
the frog is higher than they, so the little
fellow loses these appendages and becomes
a fish, and a lively fish, too. After enjoy-
ing himself quite a while, in this form, as a
"pollywog," he developes a pair of legs.
He then corresponds to another class of
animals, spoken of heretofore. His next
change transforms him into the form of a
higher branch of life — the lizard, with four
legs. He next dispenses with part of his
long, lizard-like tail, and becomes a "short-
tailed lizard. Lastly, he sheds the tail en-
tirely, and j umps out upon a log as a full-
fledged frog, -ready to live on land or in
water. He is possessed of lungs, but,
strange to say, he breathes through holes
in his skin, as long as the latter is moist,
so that he can live with his lungs removed
if he is kept wet.

STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 185

Section D exhibits an ancient "flying
dragon" and his modern relatives, the bat
and crocodile. The latter belongs to a very
distant branch, however.

Section E consists of other distantly re-
lated organisms.

This lesson has introduced us to much
food for thought. How much more uplift-
ing is the conception that all these peculiar
adaptations of structural forms to surround-
ing circumstance has come through a natu-
ral law of development, instead of by the
personal act of some Being.

I say that it is a more uplifting and en-
nobling thought, for it is certainly belittling
to any conception of an Almighty Being, of
unlimited power, to conceive of his deliber-
ately creating such specimens of life as we
see all about us . Monstrosities and mistakes
abound on all sides. Think of an omnipo-
tent being making a bedbug or a plant-louse.
Think of His making such an awkward and
ungainly animal as a lobster, with claws
and other appendages enough for three or

1 86

EVOLUTIONISM.

four other animals. Think of His making
a skunk, or a thousand-legged worm.

But the great law of Evolution does away
with all such crude conceptions, and we
understand that bad things can be evolved
as well as good. That monsters, more
deadly to humanity than the rattlesnake,
exist in such minute forms as to be invisible
to the naked eye.

In short, the Science of Progression under
environment, enables us to cut ourselves
loose from the fallacious theory of" Design,"
and stand upon the solid rock of Evolution-

LECTURE XII.

Marvefs of fctfe Forms*

STRANGE AND WONDERFUL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE DOMAIN

OF ZOOLOGY.

Evolutionary Changes Sometimes Developing Use-
less Organs. — Some Organs Worse than Useless. —
Developments of Beauty and Utility.— Wonderful
Birds Illustrated. — Marvels of the Sea. — Persist-
ence of Life Forms. — Refusal of Abrupt Develop-
ment. — The Six-Finger Experiment. — Wonderful
Developments in all Fields.

PON a careful examination of
the many life forms which have
existed on our globe, we are struck
with the fact that, in the great
work of differentiation, many-
strange forms have been evolved.
Some wonderful faculties have been devel-
oped to accompany the strange forms ; and,
although from our limited view, many ani-

188 EVOLUTIONISM.

mals seem to be unnecessarily equipped
with certain appendages, we can confidently
presume that there is a use for all parts, or
that there has been a use in the past. In
some cases, however, we can see plainly that
certain parts are not only useless, but actu-
ally dangerous to the owner.

The short, stumpy tails left to many
animals, such as the short-tailed apes, brown
bears, etc., seems to be of no earthly use to
the animals; but we can understand from
our studies, why the animals have them.
The "vermiform appendage" is believed to
be of no use to man, and, on the other hand,
is the means of his death in hundreds of
cases. In this case, we are not left to con-
jecture as to why we have that dangerous
organ, for the lower orders of the mammalia
have the same thing in its larger and more
perfect state. In the Quadrumana it begins
to deteriorate, and in man becomes an abso-
lute menace to life. The time will come
when it will completely disappear.

MARVELS OF LIFE FORMS. 189

Some animals have teeth, before birth >
which entirely disappear soon after that
event. They are descended from animals
who had teeth at the corresponding stage of
development, and the tendency has not yet
wholly disappeared; although now utterly
useless to the animal.

Chart 38 gives us an illustration of six-
teen birds, each one of whom is remarkable
for some strange or odd development. The
Trojan possesses such an enormous tail that
it is a damage to him and a hindrance, but
it is unquestionable that this appendage, as
well as the magnificient one shown below on
the Lyre-bird has been developed as a thing
of beauty. The vanity of many birds is just
as real as any foible in our own natures.
The peacock is proud of his tail. The Fla-
mingo has an immense head and bill and very
long legs, with web feet. You can see at a
glance, that he is fitted for wading and swimm-
ing. Note the difference between him and the
Curlew, who is noted for his long bill. The
well known bird, the Whipporwill, possesses

MARVELS OF LIFE FORMS. 191

a queer bunch of bristles in its mouth, which
is of use in entrapping the swiftly-flying
insects upon which it feeds. The Brown
Pelican, Toucan, Puftin, Scissors-bill and
Cross-bill, each possess something unique
in the line of bills. Each of these birds
find good use for the queer beak.

As such an organ cannot well pass as a
thing of beauty, we can understand that it
developes entirely under the law of utility.
The Humming bird is noted for his small
size, beauty of plumage and rapidity of wing
motion. The Penguin, uses his wings only
as paddles, so they have degenerated to
mere flippers. Another strange bird, not
shown on chart 38, is the Apteryx. His
feathers are so near being hair, that they
are more than a cross between the two. He
has no wings, but possesses a long beak and
the regular feet of a bird. He is a good
mate for the Duck-bill, in chart 27, where
this queer bird will be found; as one is a
quadruped bird and the other a biped non-
descript.

MARVELS OF LIFE FORMS. 193

The most learned Naturalists have agreed
in believing that the bird family are a "side
development," united at both beginning and
end with other orders of life — a "loop," as
we might say, from the chain of progression.

Chart No. 39 takes us to another ele-
ment — water. Here we have nineteen species
of fish, and other sea animals akin to fish.
There are thousands of strange forms, rang-
ing from animals so small that a thousand
could be laid upon a spot the size of a period
in this book, up to enormous fish and great
sea lizards of past periods. The chart only
gives a few of all the queer developments,
and those not the strangest.

The beautiful "Archer fish" is not only
provided with an elegant form, with many
ornamental points, but he also possesses an
accurate gun, in the shape of a mouth, with
which he can shoot a fly several inches
away. Some varieties of this fish have not
yet developed the peculiarities mentioned.
The strong spur of the Narwhal, like the
sword of the Swordfish, and the saw of the

194 EVOLUTIONISM.

Saw-fish is an interesting appendage. The
animal called the "Wing-foot" is another
queer link. He has a head related to the
cuttle tribe, in a mild way, while he has
wings in the place of fore legs, which are
used as paddles. The Squid, on this chart,
is one of a numerous family, noted for their
activity and deadly grasp. Some of the
larger varieties are called "Devilfish." They
are all invertebrates, and rank as a higher
development of simple jellyfish of preceding
ages. The Sea Urchin is another wonder-
ful animal, covered with spines and suckers,
thousands in number. You would not think
that he possessed a "shell," but he does,
underneath all those outside appendages.

The Sea Horse, Cobblerfish, Trunkfish,
Toadfish, Puffer, Sea Raven, Sunfish and
Sea Robin are each possessed of some special
development. The Dolphin has a queer
shape, and more development of fins than
any other fish. Many ancient works speak
of this animal. Another animal, which pos-
sesses such a strange development as to

MARVELS OF LIFE FORMS. 195

have called out pages of description, in
various books, is the Argonaut, or " Paper
Sailor." He is a connecting link between
the Nautilus and the Squid.

While speaking of the Nautilus, I will
mention, that he is the sole survivor or
living representative of more than two thou-
sand fossil species of the same order. There
are six species of the genus now living.
The funny shaped Horse-shoe Crab, is a
queer animal. He is a cross between several
orders of life, and therefore retains the traces
of both ancient and modern forms. He has
two pair of eyes; one pair compound, as in
insects, and the other pair simple, as in fish,
and all the higher animals. This crab is
also related to our ancient friend, the Tril-
obite, once the " king of earth." Strange to
say, this animal is also called the "King
Crab."

I shall not attempt to go into the exten-
sive field of strange development further.
We have seen enough to fix it firmly in our
minds that nature responds to almost any

196 EVOLUTIONISM.

call made upon her, if she can only be given
time enough to bring about the changes
slowly. She will not respond suddenly, for
that is contrary to the law of evolution.

Everything goes to prove that life forms
change almost imperceptably, but constantly .
While species are confined within certain
limits, by the law of fixity, there is a con-
stant tendency to differentiate the varieties of
each species to the confines of other orders
of life.

In some cases, we find that animals of the
same genus, although of different species,
can be crossed in breed. But, in all such
cases, heretofore discovered, nature refuses
to go on with the development one step
further. She will accept the comparatively
sudden production of an apparently new
species, like the mule, for instance; but she
repudiates the job from that time on, by
stopping the succession. This is a charac-
teristic by no means confined to the animal
kingdom. The vegetable kingdom is noted
for many examples of the kind. By bud-

MARVELS OF LIFE FORMS. 197

ding and grafting, many fhiits are produced,
which are crosses between distinct species,
but the seeds of each fruit will not produce
a succession.

Right here we have another proof, if such
is needed, of the close relationship existing
between the two great kingdoms.

To me, this law of life presents one of
the most beautiful characteristics of the
great law of development. It is as if nature
should say : "I have my own way of work-
ing, slowly but surely. I put down my
work to stay. When I have produced a
form, under a long steady demand for the
same, I am not going to throw it aside in
a hurry. In fact, I am opposed, upon prin-
ciple, to throwing it aside at all. The most
I will consent to is a gradual change, as
circumstances demand."

Any little peculiarity which is produced
"momentarily," as it were, such, for in-
stance, as the sixth toe, or an extra finger,
ranks as an "accident," so to speak, in
Nature's work. A few years ago, a French

198 EVOLUTIONISM.

Savant undertook the job of experimenting
along this line. He advertised for a male
and female who possessed either six toes on
each foot, or an extra finger on each hand.

He was successful in finding two people,
who were in no ways related, who had the
sextuple form of hands. The couple were
united and bore offspring.

This man reasoned, that if ever nature
had an opportunity to propogate a freak
member, she had it then. But she refused
the chance offered, and the three children of
the couple were all destitute of the six
fingers.

It turned out like the Irishman's pedegree,
where his great grand-father, his grand-
father, and his father, each had a wooden
leg: "But, wud you belave it, I was born
with two as sound legs as any kid ever had
under him."

Examine where we will, the same great
on-marching sequence of cause and effect
ever confronts us. Nature's productions,
always bear the stamp of permanency, ex-

MARVELS OF LIFE FORMS. 199

actly in proportion to the length of time
taken to evolute them.

Another law is, that the higher an evolu-
tion is in the scale of being, the harder it is
to produce it. Beginning low down in the
scale, we find plants and trees of all grades,
readily reproducing parts, or partially re-
producing them, which have been amputa-
ted. A new limb, or a new root, sprouts
forth to take the place of the old. But, even
in plants, there are parts which are usually
vital to the organism. Parts, which if re-
moved, will kill the plants. When we come
to the lower orders of animal life we find the
same law in force.

Some animals may be cut into four or
five pieces, and each piece will swim away
and set up life on its own account, as a new
individual. Several species of animals prop-
ogate by breaking into two pieces, which,
in turn, break into two others, and so on.
The Crab can grow a new claw, in place of
a lost one, while some species of lizards can
drop their tails, when in a tight place, and

200 EVOLUTIONISM.

afterwards grow new ones. This quality-
reminds us of the fact that at a certain stage
of life, the " polly wog-lizard " drops his tail
and becomes permanently a tail-less frog.
We observe a fine foreshadowing of the frog,
in the case of the lizards above mentioned.

Our lesson of to-day teaches us many
grand truths. We see that the law of
nature, by which she presents an almost
limitless diversity of structure; and yet is
constantly bounded by an invisible line,
which precludes a chaotic crossing of fixed
forms; holds good in the fields of Zoology
and Botany, as well as in the domains of
Chemistry, Astronomy and Physics.

As there are strange and wonderful forms
developed in the animal world, just so we
find strange planets, like Saturn; odd suns,
like Algol ; queer nebulae, such as the Dumb-
bell or Great Spiral; wonderful comets, like
the great multiple-tailed comet. We have
strange plants, like the fly-catcher; marvel-
ous forces, such as electricity; wonderful
vibrations, as the "X ray;" and, in short,

MARVELS OF LIFE FORMS.

201

which ever way we turn our investigations,
we find wonders opening to our view.

Friends, we are but mites in a Universe
of Marvels. An Infinity of Life and Motion
surrounds us, even as the broad Atlantic
surrounds the tiny speck of developing pro-
toplasm.

LECTURE XIII.
Progression Vniversat.

Evolution of Language, Orthography, Religion, In-
vention, Morals, Ethics, Science, Habits, Culture,
Refinement, Government and Law.— The Law of
Survival of the Fittest.— Same General Law Ap-
plies to All.— The Nature of Infinite Law De-
fined. — ' The Universe is Governed by Fixed Laws.'
—Demonstrated Science, as a Religion.— Under-
standing op Evolution, the Bulwark of the Reli-
gion of the Stars.

£ great and grand principle of
Evolution and steady progres-
sion under favoring conditions,
not confined to the production
life forms, or the shaping of

-Ids, suns and systems. It is

a universal principle, that applies every-
where.

PROGRESSION UNIVERSAL. 20a

Language is a product of evolution. Old
words are dropped entirely from a given
language, in the same way that certain
organs became extinct in given animals.
New words come into use in the same way
that new organs are evolved.

In some cases, environment is such
that the entire language falls into disuse
and becomes a "dead language." This
corresponds to the total extinguishment of
certain species of animals. Again, a long
period of time changes the meaning of words,
until the resulting language can scarcely be
understood. Prolong the time and it be-
comes, to all intents and purposes, a "new
language," so-called. But, as a matter of
fact, there never was such a language as a
"new language," except in a restricted
sense, which we shall hereafter mention.

All the great languages of earth have
roots in common, which indicate a connec-
tion far back. Two or three attempts have
been made to artificially produce a language
without waiting for the slow and natural

304 EVOLUTIONISM

process of evolution. Even these attempts
were based greatly upon existing languages,
but they would not stand. I do not believe
that any language will ever be "made" or
u created," which will be used regularly by
any people.

Orthography is another constantly evolut-
ing and changing quantity. With all our
standards of spelling, words are bound to
change steadily in construction, and even in
definition. The change is scarcely percept-
able in ten or twenty years ; but two or three
hundred years make such great change, that
one can scarcely read a book, understand-
ing^, in his own language of two hundred
years back.

The people of England and the United
States spoke the same language once. Now
the differentiation is remarkable, considering
that we both use about the same standards.
Nearly all English books have such words
as color and honor, spelled "colour" and
"honour." They simply have not evoluted
out of that old and awkward spelling, while

PROGRESSION UNIVERSAL. 205

we have. Only thirty years ago, a man
would not have dared to use the words
"catalog" or "plow," hardly. The correct
thing was catalogue and plough. The
necessities of our last war changed the
awkwardly spelled words "piquette" and
" corps," to picket and core.

But, on the other hand, vain attempts
have been made by reformers to artificially
hasten, or make sudden changes in orthog-
raphy. One New York j ournal worked man-
fully for years and years, by precept and
example, to change certain words, as follows:
"hav, giv, lov," and many others, where the
dropped letter is never sounded. But the
other papers of the United States would
never follow suit. Had they all taken up
the plan, our final "e," in that class of
words would have looked odd by this time.

Religions are all evolutions. Each new
religion, so called, is but a graft upon an
old one. A gradual change takes place in
religious thought until the progressive ele-
ment, in a given church, become obnoxious

ao6 EVOLUTIONISM.

to the conservatives, then a separation takes
place. The new cult is christened and
launched, to in time, become again split.

Thus the work of evolution goes on in all
the churches. But, every time a creed splits
off, the old stock becomes slightly changed,
and the consequence is, that creeds are be-
coming obsolete, the same as some animals
have become extinct. Hear me predict:
The time will come, before many thousands
of years, when the Christian religion in all
its branches, big and little, together with
all the other great religions of our earth,
will be as dead and extinct as the Trilobite
of the Silurian.

Why, I heard things openly preached in
the pulpit, such as infant damnation and
endless Hell-fire and brimstone, when I was
a boy, that a minister would not dare preach
in Chicago to-day. You might find a place
somewhere in the back settlements of some
benighted country where you could hear the
same preaching now. But that is simply
according to the law of evolution.

PROGRESSION UNIVERSAL. 207

"Australia possesses some species of
animals, Marsupials, which became extinct
ten or twenty thousand years ago in other
parts of the earth." — Darwin.

The theory, that a Supreme Being ever
gave one, of all the six thousand religions
of this earth, to man, is absolutely contrary
to the laws of evolution and the facts. It
is as absurd as the entire theory of special
creations must ever be, to thinking men and
women.

Inventions are the work of evolution.
The Locomotive, the Rolling mill, tfce Tele-
phone, or the Bicycle, as each is to-day, is a
product of evolution. Each improvement
is a differentiation of what existed before.
A wheel, a shaft, a pully, a cam, a crank,
or some other device is added here and there,
and the machine grows more and more
perfect.

The law always holds good, that the more
liberal minded and advanced, as thinkers,
a people are, the greater their inventive
genius. That is why rapid evolution al-
ways goes hand in hand with progress.

208 EVOLUTIONISM.

The machines, of every description, in use
to-day are "survivals of the fittest," just as
much as the orders and species of animals
and plants are.

Morals, Ethics, Science, Habits, Culture,
Refinement, and every quality or practice
of which the human race is capable, are
constantly evoluting. What would be con-
sidered perfectly moral in one age, becomes
highly reprehensible in another. What
would be thought now of a State which
would hang men for stealing two pounds
sterling. Or of one which would counte-
nance an inquisition, or the burning of
heritics, or reputed witches.

But, we should remember that there are
certain useless or detrimental organs still
retained among animals which are only sur-
vivals of a past age. Therefore, we would
look for some survivals of the past systems
of morals, ethics, science, etc., mentioned
above. And we find them, too. For there
are places and people who are on that
plane yet. There are those who would per-

PROGRESSION UNIVERSAL. 209

secute with fire, for opinion's sake, or kill
those whom they suspect of communing
with the unseen. There are persons, yet,
who firmly believe that our earth is not a
globe, but a flat plain, although such belief
is nothing but a survival of a barbarous age.
All over our poor, downtrodden earth, men
are made miserable when they might be
comparatively happy, simply because we are
full of excrescences of past errors, which
have survived all the usefulness which they
once possessed. We are to-day using sys-
tems of statescraft, finance, trade reciprocity,
land ownership and taxation, which are
directly intended to produce great misery
among millions of human beings. Yet,
such is the persistency of anything once
established under the law of evolution, that
we cannot get rid of these things, except by
the action of the same law.

All those who see these things, and there-
fore desire to amputate them at once, are
placed in a position to be called cranks and
fools, for their pains. Some people think

2io EVOLUTIONISM.

that the expression, "the survival of the
fittest," means the survival of that which
ought to be perpetuated.. But such is not
the case, by any means. The meaning
could be expressed better, thus : " The sur-
vival of that which is best calculated to with-
stand all the antagonizing influences which
tend to annihilate it." A bad thing is just
as likely to be evolved and to hold its own,
as a good thing. Some lies have stood for
centuries, against all the assaults of truth.
The poison and fangs of a serpent, the
perfume of a pole cat, or the ramifying and
corroding roots of a cancer, are evolutions,
just as much as are the luscious peach or
strawberry, or the grand and beautiful
thoughts of a poet. A celebrated writer
has lately said: "all that is, is right."
Another quoted this, and said: "all that is,
is wrong." I beg leave to differ with both
of these gentlemen, and put it thus: "all
that is, is neither right nor wrong, but
simply w." Whether a given thing is good
or bad, right or wrong, depends upon circum-

PROGRESSION UNIVERSAL. 211

stances and the opinions of individuals.
The odor of the skunk is no doubt a "good
thing," to the animal himself. The un-
limited power of an autocrat or a tyrant, is
a " good thing," for the tyrant himself. A
system of finance, that enables a few to live
in idleness, upon the slavish labor of the
many, is a "good thing" for the ones who
profit by it. Every single one of these sur-
vivals of past ages will remain, until they
are evoluted out of existence.

I have wandered a little, perhaps, from my
regular line of thought, in my efforts to
impress upon you that evolution is a general
and inexorable law, from which there is no
escape. We cannot run counter to it any
more than we can to the law of gravitation.
And this reminds me, that there is a wide-
spread fallacy in the minds of humanity, as
to what a "law" is, and the nature of it.
We all know what a man-enacted law is.
Men can enact almost any law ; but such law
is not a law, only in a limited sense. Men
pass a law, "No person shall commit lar-

212 EVOLUTIONISM.

ceny, under penalty," etc., etc. But people
do steal every day and every hour. The
law is, therefore, only nominal, and fixes a
punishment for the infraction. But Nature's
laws are different affairs altogether. They
are not made or created; makeable or cre-
atable.

A Christian friend, in an argument with
me a few days ago, said: "not a law exists
except some one made it or passed it."
"How about this?" said I, "twice two make
four; two things put with two others make
four things; that is one arithmetical law of
thousands. Now, who made it?" "Why,
God did," he replied. " If God had wanted
to, he could have made the law so that two
things put with two more things would have
made five or seven."

Comment is useless. Any person, with
half a spoonful of brains, aught to be able
to see the fallacy of such assertions as that.

Yet, the entire doctrines and creeds of
thousands of religions are substantially
based upon just such errors. Of course,

PROGRESSION UNIVERSAL. 213

as we go up into more intricate subjects,
the error becomes more involved and not so
easily seen. For instance, a real intelligent,
and quite scientifiic gentleman, not long
ago, said to me:

"What a beautiful law of the Almighty
that is, that the square of the base, plus the
square of the perpendicular, of a right-
angled triangle, should exactly equal the
square of the hypotenuse."

" Why," said I, laughingly, " do you think
some being ever made that law?"

"Why, certainly I do," he replied.

" If that is the case then, it follows that
there must have been a time in the past,
when the square of the base, plus the square
of the perpendicular, of a right-angle tri-
angle, would have made some other number
than the one produced by squaring the
hypothenuse"

He looked dumfounded for a moment,
and then began to look foolish, as he replied :
"Well, I declare, I never thought of that,
I must look this thing over a little."

214 EVOLUTIONISM.

The more lie looks, the more he will find
that the only absolute laws; that is, those
which compel; are laws which are never made
and are unmakable. They always have ex-
isted and always will exist. It seems to me,
that the understanding of natural law, is
what constitutes religion. That is, true
religion. If I am right, then it follows that
the non-comprehension of such law, is a
concomitant of false religion and is irre-
ligious. As an entire denial of, or conflict
with, the great facts of science has always
been a principal characteristic of so-called
" revealed religions," we can see that my
supposition has much to commend it.

In this light, the immortal Humboldt was
a grand religionist, and enunciated a beau-
tiful religious truth, when he said: " The
universe is governed by fixed laws."

The great Darwin, when he formulated
the laws of Evolution, was a "revelator,"
more truly than were the founders of many
religions of men.

PROGRESSION UNIVERSAL.

215

If Truth ; scientific, demonstrated truth,
is not religion, pray what is? Superstition,
dogmatism, ignorance and falsehood, cannot
be real religion, however honest their pro-
mulgators may be.

The grand and marvelous truths of Evolu-
tion constitute a bulwark, which guards,
like a strong wall, the domain of Mystic
Science. That wall guards the Religion of
the Stars from the assaults of the cohorts
of superstition.

My dear friends, it is not enough for us
to believe in evolution; we should under-
stand it, appreciate it, and be able to
expound it unto others, that we may thereby
elevate mankind from the bogs and morasses
of darkness, to bright and shining heights
upon the Mountain of Science.

LECTURE XIV.
JBegond tfie l^ftgsicaif*

Principles op Nature.— Matter and Energy.— Trans-
formation of Energy.— Differ enc B between Or"
ganic and Inorganic Enkkgy. — The Spirit is Or-
ganized Energy.— Electric Energy, the "Soul"
of a Plate of Zinc— Re- incarnation of Energy.—
The Principle of Sex an Evolution. — The Part
Heredity Plays. — Nature of the Astral. — atoms
Furnish the Beginnings of Energy.— Contrasted
with Men.— De materialization of Solid Matter.

have been dealing thus far
vith mental and physical evo-
ution. We have traced the
ibrmation of a solar system and
i world. We have then ex-
amined that earth step by step

from a ball of gas to an inhabited globe.

Again, we have patiently dug downward

BEYOND THE PHYSICAL. 217

miles and miles into its outer crust, and
have minutely examined the strata and
fossils found therein. Then we examined
the surface and carefully compared living
species under the light of Evolution's laws.

But now, my friends, we are to undertake
a higher and more difficult task, for we are
to apply the laws already discovered to the
salution of that higher expression which
extends beyond the physical. We shall
attempt to make the investigation as easily
understood as that which has gone before.

Certain fundamental principles should be
thoroughly understood, in order that con-
fusion may not arise in our minds as we
pursue the higher investigation. There-
fore, we will lay down these guiding princi-
ples as far as possible, now.

First. Natures laws do not go part way
and then come to an end, or substitute some
other law of action. This means, that when
we find the law of evolution regulating the
production of species up to the point where
we have found 4t, we can confidently look

218 EVOLUTIONISM.

for the action of the same law in any higher
advancement, or expression.

Second. Laws are eternal and omni-
present. That is, they have always acted
and always will act, and they operate every-
where throughout the universe in precicely
the same way.

Third. Matter in motion constitutes
energy. That is, without motion of matter,
either in mass or vibratory, we could have
no energy manifested.

Fourth. Neither matter or energy can
be destroyed. They can be constantly trans-
formed, but cannot be annihilated. A vibra-
tion of atoms, or molecules cannot come to
a stop, in a given expression, except by
being transformed into some other motion.
Conversly we have the following law.

Fifth. No motion can exist, except upon
the transformation of some other motion into
it. That is, every expression of energy in
the universe is a cause, and at the same time
an effect. In other words, energy must be
eternal.

BEYOND THE PHYSICAL. 219

I presume that you are all mere or less
familiar with my lectures on the human
soul, published in the Religion of the Stars y
so I shall proceed as if you understood a
great deal about the matter already.

The body is composed of organic atoms
in a certain state of vibration.

The mind or spirit dwelling therein, is,
composed of organized atoms vibrating at a
much higher rate*

The astral or in-dwelling soul, is composed
of still finer atoms, organized still more
highly and vibrating more rapidly.

All these three parts unite to make a living
man; and each of them came from some
preceding expression.

Just as there is inorganic matter and or-
ganic, so there is inorganic vibration and
organic. The vibrations of light, heat, elec-
tricity and all such forms of energy are.
inorganic. Organized motion, of the higher
etheric atoms, produces mind. The astral
is an evolution from all lower expressions
of organic motion. Therefore the astral is

32o EVOLUTIONISM.

simply a persistent evolution of mind. You
have seen, in former lectures, where that
persistance of energy as applied to the phy-
sical, produced traits and principles which
have survived during millions of years. For
instance, the " Quintuple Expression," as it
is called. Now, the same general law of
fixity acts all the way up, and the persistance
of the spirit produces the astral body, the
only part of man which survives the wreck of
ages.

At first, the astral is so little advanced
above the spirit, that the two are nearly in
equilibrium. They cannot exist separated
from each other, and one just balances the
other. They can be separated momentarily,
but they will rush together again instantly,
or else thev must be incarnated in some
other newly formed body. This is the case
with nearly all metallic compounds. For
instance, take this plate of Zinc ; this is an
elementary, inorganic body. Its soul is in-
organic; that is, it cannot think or act. But
every atom in that plate of Zinc has its

BEYOND THE PHYSICAL. 22r

positive and negative polarities, and its soul
or inner principle, lias the same two-fold
expression. That double expression is the
inorganic spirit and astral. To separate these
two principles, we must destroy the Zinc.
That is, we must "kill it," in its present
body. I dare say that is a new idea to most
of you. But death is only a transformation
and a liberation after all, and we can subject
this Zinc to the same process.

We can kill this, as "Zinc," and make it
into " Sulphate of Zinc." In so doing, we
liberate a certain quality, which has resided
therein, which is really a metallic soul
energy. It has a twofold nature, and can be
made to manifest itself under proper con-
ditions. Of course, we choose to call this
manifestation " Electricity," and give its two
phases the terms, positive and negative.
But we must remember that such terms are
only names given by science, to explain an
unknown force.

As the mind is an electro-magnetic mani-
festation, and as the soul, astral, or whatever

322 EVOLUTIONISM.

terms we may use to designate it, is also a
magnetic manifestation, we have a perfect
right to assume that all matter is endowed
with "soul energy." Further than this, we
know that such soul energy is liberated on
the death of a physical form, both in the
inorganic and organic worlds. Besides this,
wre know that in the inorganic world the
•energetic vibration thus liberated, will re-
incarnate in another compound, which is
nearly enough like the one destroyed.

This is the principle of the storage
hattery. It is true that inorganic energy
can be raised by the motion of magnets,
which temporarily disturb the ether, but
this manifestation is but the taking of a
portion of the great earth soul for a time,
to again be returned to earth. There is a
low form of sex in the atoms, molecules,
plants and lowest life forms. This sex prin-
ciple which begins in such shadowy forms
at the bottom, becomes a fixed differntiated
principle in the higher forms of life. But,
although regarded as fixed, there are excep-

BEYOND THE PHYSICAL. 223

tions, where, in isolated cases, the energy of
past ages shows itself in a double sex in one
individual. This is a condition common to
atoms, many plants and low forms of animal
life. Oxygen is a male and female atom
combined. It acts as a male element towards
the female atoms, Hydrogen, Potassium and
several other monads. It unites with the
male element Carbon as a female. In fact
nearly all atoms are double sexed.

Among the various principles evoluted
during all the millions of years of the past,
we can regard sex as one of the most per-
fectly fixed differentiations in existence.
When we come to consider that the very
propagation of life forms depends upon this
twofold differentiation, we are not surprised.
Then again, when we take into consideration
the fact that the attractive, or " love principle,"
originating in the atoms, is another strongly
fixed and highly evoluted energy, and that
each in turn depends upon the other. We
realize that the two are " stronger than
death;" that they extend into the great

224 EVOLUTIONISM.

beyond and follow the evolution of intelli-
gence to the highest spheres.

THE GREAT LAW OF ENERGETIC VIBRATION.

Energy cannot be deslrcyed; therefore, as
souls, either high or low, are energetic
manifestations, they cannot be annihilated.
This is the entire basis of a future state of
existence.

These vibrating souls are immediately
re-incarnated on liberation, unless no new
body is available, which has a vibrating
expression which co-ordinates therewith. If
none such is at hand, the soul is liberated
as an astral energy, which may manifest
itself in many ways. A stick of wood has
been robbed of its vegetable life energy. But
it has its chemical organization, its "soul
of union" of the elements, Carbon, Oxygen
and Hydrogen, still intact. We drive them
apart and liberate the soul force by means
of fire, which destroys the organization.
This energy can be re-incarnated in other
motions. In fact it must be, as that is the
law of energy.

BEYOND THE PHYSICAL. 225

When organization has arrived at a point
where it becomes intelligence, it is but a
higher form of energy. We might illus-
trate this by means of a telephone line and
instruments, although it is necessarily a
crude representation. The wire, and both
instruments, are entirely filled with the
normal etheric vibrations, which are unin-
telligent. That is, they are not organized
so highly as intellect.

Mr. Andrews now speaks into one of the
phones and utters words which convey in-
telligence: "Say, Mr. Smith, hurry home;
your house is on fire."

This sentence is at first an organized air
vibration, pulsating in harmony with a
thought vibration in Mr. Andrews' brain.
This vibration imparts a corresponding one
to the metalic diaphragm of the phone.
That causes magnetic pulsations in the
magnet, which imparts organized vibration
to the normal inorganic vibrations already
in the wire. At the other end the entire
series is reversed, and Mr. Smith, having a

226 EVOLUTIONISM.

nerve, which conveys the vibrations from
the air in front of the phone to his brain, is
enabled to interpret the vibrations, so that
he receives the intelligence.

Now, you can see how persistently that
vibration, when once organized, followed
through all those changes, yet remained
intact. It had to traverse the domain of
mind vibrations, air, magnetism, electricity
and nervous vibration. Yet it remained
organized to the end.

We have seen heretofore, how the per-
sistence of principle results in certain forms.
Must we stop when we come to the unseen
universe of spirit and say "evolution ends
here?" No! for the same grand law still
persists. Souls are evolutions, j ust the same
as are bodies, and are evoluted under the
same laws.

THE LAWS GOVERNING HEREDITY.

From preceding unions of fixed energies,
we inherit our physical bodies, with what-
ever peculiar tendencies as instruments, may
be imparted to them by conditions and in-

BEYOND THE PHYSICAL. 227

fluences existing in the bodies furnishing
the impulse and the magnetic surroundings
at the time of growth and completion. The
body may be adapted to certain diseases;
some part may be weaker than it ought to
be. It may be given a tendency to large
growth or small. There may be a large
space for expansion of the intelligent spirit
which is to be evolved therein. Or there
may be a tendency to smallness of brain
room, which will dwarf the new intelligence
and not allow it a good manifestation. All
these are environing conditions. But there
is one part which had nothing to do with all
this, directly, and that is the astral. That
is not an inherited quality, except as an in-
heritance of past ages of progress. The
astral is an evoluted, energetic intellectual
efitity, resulting from the effect of the sub-
mergence of a long line of intelligent ener-
gies therein. In the atoms we have attrac-
tion, a form of love; selection, a form of
choice, adaptability to environment and an
entire conformation to mathematical laws.

228 EVOLUTIONISM.

In the pentad atom, nitrogen, we see a very
early form of the wonderful five-fold forma-
tion which has so persisted during the ages.
The element which "takes hold of others
with so light a grasp and lets go so sud-
denly," as one chemist puts it, almost causes
us to trace the analogy up even to the deli-
cate five-fingered hand of man, with its deft
quickness and power. Is it not wonderful,
friends, that the very meaning of five is
"sudden changes" and "change," when
nitrogen compounds are noted for their sud-
den changes? Scarcely an explosive com-
pound is known which does not contain
nitrogen. Take the bivalent atoms, such
as oxygen. Two and four stand for accom-
plishment and construction, union and sat-
isfaction. Make and finish. The two hands
of man are typified. All chemists know
the great work accomplished through the
energetic powers of oxygen and the great
" construction " powers of carbon, the quad-
rivalent atom. One represents the desire,
the wish, the want nature. Hydrogen pos-

BEYOND THE PHYSICAL. 229

sesses this quality. Good for nothing, in
itself, as an energy of form, it rushes to its
union with oxygen and " satisfies" that ele-
ment and controls its energy in the union,
even as a gentle and affectionate woman,
unable to construct herself, should join with
energetic, impulsive man and control him
through her peculiar powers. Nearly all
the vegetable world is made up of those three
elements last named.

I have spoken thus briefly upon a subject
which is almost infinite. I could extend the
comparison to all the elementary atoms. I
could then show the changes taking place
on the union of atoms, forming molecules,
but such an exhaustive enquiry would make
a large book in itself. We see the same
work going on to-day with men and women
that begins with the atoms. First, the indi-
vidual. Second, a close union with another,
who attracts. Third, union with others —
the family. Fourth, the aggregation of sev-
eral families into a society. Fifth, union of
societies into States and large communities.

230 EVOLUTIONISM.

This is but a higher manifestation of the
atom, the molecule, the compound molecule,
the looser union of the latter in still greater
compounds, and those into a mass of matter.
Each atom preserves its individuality, and
yet is merged within the whole and bound
by its governing laws.

To me it is as plain as a, b, c, that the
desires of the atoms are merged in the
greater and more complicated desires of the
higher evolutions, which are all formed from
those atoms. We have no other source
from which the energies of soul force could
start. Being ever existent in the atoms,
those invisable potencies are the foundation
of all. You will now understand why it is
that molecules must be organized and con-
structed by lower forms of life, before they
can be appropriated by man. We are sur-
rounded by a sea of free nitrogen, yet we
cannot appropriate an atom to our use.
Each atom of that element must enter into
combinations which will prepare it for its
entry into man's economy. We need phos-

BEYOND THE PHYSICAL. 231

phorus, to think with. But not a speck of
that can be used in our brains until it has
been organized by beings beneath us in the
scale. The humble oyster sucks in ani-
malculae and absorbs them from the sea,
and these infinitesimal beings are so much
lower in the scale of evolution, than is
the oyster, that they are capable of absorb-
ing phosphorescent compounds direct. We,
in turn, can absorb the oyster and appropri-
ate the organized phosphorus.

It is believed that many of the elements
going to the composition of the human body
pass through several organisms, from dia-
toms upward, before reaching man.

In considering matter in its various man-
ifestations, we are apt to think of it as some-
thing to be seen and handled. Yet such a
thought is very misleading. We should
remember that atomic and molecular aggre-
gations must be very great and much con-
densed before becoming visible. Air is
made of three elements, mixed, not chemi-
cally united — oxygen, nitrogen and argon.

232

EVOLUTIONISM.

Each of these gases appear as opaque solids,
under some conditions; yet, as air, they are
perfectly invisible. It is believed that not
an element or a compound exists but what
will disappear from view and touch when its
ultimate atoms are made to vibrate rapidly
enough, or in larger orbits.

I am aware that a chemical and scientific
view of the soul in man is not a popular one.
Men have so long looked upon the spirit or
soul as being something "God given,"
supernatural, or something intangible, or
made from "nothing," that they do dislike
to hear the truth. But, popular or un-
popular, we must stand for the truth as we
find it, and must therefore regard the soul
like the body, as an elemental, vibrating,
evoluted, entity.

LECTURE XV.

THE HEAVEN OF THE FUTURE IS A HEAVEN OF ADVANCEMENT.

A Sei,f Perpetuating Universe. — Messengers of the
Heavens. — New Suns Bi,aze Out in Space. — Advanc-
ing to Higher Planes. — The Great Broad Gage
Route of Evolution.— The Great Law of Life. —
Absurd Bewefs of Past Ages.— Evolution of the
Deity. — One Rewgion which Goes on Forever.

'HAT is the next step in Evolu-
tion? This is the important
question. It will never do for
an evolutionist to set up a barier
to progress. It is contrary to
all the laws of nature. Neither
can he set up any "end" of time, as to the
universe. If any amount of "time" would
be sufficient to bring everything to an end,
or a state of physical and spiritual equilib-
rium, it is demonstrable that, everything

234 EVOLUTIONISM.

would be in that condition now. Inasmuch
as "time," or duration, cannot have a begin-
ning, any problem into which time, as an
entirety, enters, must be regarded as infinite.
Fortunately we have abundant evidence that
the universe, as a whole, is self perpetua-
ting; that is, it renews itself by a constant
round of energetic actions, and has always
done so, and always will.

In this work, comets, those mysterious
"messengers of the heavens," play an im-
portant part. To live suns the comets bring
changes of electric and magnetic energies.
To dead suns they bring new life by plung-
ing bodily into them. Live suns repel the
negative portion of a comet, and thus drive
it off in the form of a gigantic tail. Comets
far off in space, do not possess tails. It is
only as they approach the sun that they
begin to possess such appendages. But
an old and worn out, cold sun, dragging its
family of dead worlds in silence after it
through space, does not possess the repellent
powers that a live sun has. It "attracts"

ONWARD AND UPWARD. 235

with all its former power, but the other
quality has departed. The first great comet
which comes plunging towards such a sun,
from out of the depths of space, hundreds
of billions of miles distant, will make a dead
shot for the center of it. It will strike the
sun with all the accumulated energies of
momentum. The impact alone would be
sufficient to furnish tremendous quantities
of heat, but, in addition to this, it would
break an immense hole in the dark crust
of the dead sun and let out the fiery matters
from within. The hydrogen of each body
would immediately flame out, and a "new
sun " would be seen by astronomers in far off
systems.

As a sun lasts many millions of years,
we could not expect such an event to occur
very often. But, among such a vast multi-
tude of suns, there are so many dead ones
that one is liable to be resurrected at any
time. In fact, it is nothing uncommon for
a couple of such cases to occur in a century.

236 EVOLUTIONISM.

In all such cases there is a "new heaven
and a new earth " for some system.

But where are the souls of men all this
time? Do they go on forever? They do.
The next plane of life above the physical
is but one of numerous planes — infinite
planes of advancement. We keep coming
to this earth of ours, as a boy goes to school,
term after term, until his graduation. When
we have developed sufficiently to rise entirely
above and independent of the flesh, we can
cut loose from this planet and rise to higher
realms. But we have much to do to arrive
at that degree of perfection. We must not
only lift ourselves, but we must lift the
entire intellectual and spiritual development
of earthly humanity.

We can raise ourselves, individually, but
a little above the common level. Therefore
the general level must be raised. Individ-
uals are like waves on a lake, surrounded by
mountains. The waves may strive in vain
to wash down rocks which are above their
reach, or to climb to the tops of the hills.

ONWARD AND UPWARD. 237

But, if the level of all the waters can be
raised, then the waves can rise to higher
places.

Do not imagine you can cheat the laws of
evolution and by some hocus-pocus rise to
higher planes before you are prepared for
them. As well might the Trilobite of the
Silurian have attempted to climb a tree, as
our friend the monkey did a few million
years later. As well might the frog attempt
to fly, like a bird. As well might the per-
son who cannot comprehend the "secrecy"
of the truth, attempt to wade through the
waves, without wearing a mantle of charity,
in a vain attempt to comprehend the marvel-
ous majesty of the universe.

In short, the laws of evolution are constant
and infinite. When we rise to higher planes
of existence we must do it under the law of
being and must evolute to the state required
on that plane. When you are on the arch-
angelic plane you must be fit to be an arch-
angel. You must have graduated as an
angel of the light and have helped others

338 EVOLUTIONISM.

"onward and upward " as stars in your
crowns.

The old idea taught by the churches, as
a relict of the dark ages, that the future
state of existence is simply a great undefined
" place of rest," a heaven of peace, with no
progression and with nothing to make exist-
ence desirable, except to singsongs of praise
forever, has done more to make atheists and
materialists than all else put together. It
is not to be wondered at that such ignorant
ideas should repulse intelligent people. A
heaven of stagnation and eternal rest, of
perfection, although in the presence of a
God a million miles tall, with eyes like small
suns and a tongue like a two-edged flame of
fire, would be worse than eternal annihila-
tion. It would get to be a bore in less than
ten million years. Then what would you
do during the eternity to follow? No, friends,
we believe in no such a heaven. Heaven
and hell are both our portion, and they are
everywhere. We have both within us, and
we have only to make the latter as small as

ONWARD AND UPWARD. 239

possible and the former as large as we can.
We are all traveling onward over the great
broad gage railroad, which starts in the
eternal past and extends into the great
eternal future. Each terminal is veiled
equally from our sight. Some of us travel
in a day coach; some in a freight car, or
even an open flat. Some snooze comfort-
ably in a sleeper, while others revel in a
palace car, and drink champaign in a gilded
dining car. Some, as tramps, are glad to
ride on the bumper, or the frame beneath
the cars, amid the noise and dust. Some
brave souls stand at the throttle and "look
ahead" along the track, while others oil the
machinery and shovel in the coal. Some
cranky individuals even get out on the cow
catcher and proudly point to the head light on
the engine as their light. But the whole
great train is thundering on towards the com-
mon goal. It passes among cleared fields of
beauty and flashes over broad, sparkling
streams, to again shoot into dark forests,
where slimy reptiles slowly yield the right

240 EVOLUTIONISM.

of way. But " on, on, ever onward," is the
motto, and nothing can stop the ''Train of
Evolution."

But oh, my dear friends, there are so
many stations along this great line. All
kinds of stations — little and big; and many
side tracks and spurs running out into the
dark forests and into bogs and morasses.
How many passengers stick to the main
line? Few only, for any great length of
time. Some stop at the city of Self Conceit
for a long time and imagine they are of great
importance to the universe. Others leave
the train at Scandalville and wear out their
shoes very soon. Some get angry at the
conductor on some part of the train and
jump off in a gravel pit and spend their time
hurling stones at the train. Some get off
and join a gang of road agents and proceed
to pile up rocks and logs on the track, in the
vain endeavor to stop the train. They do
delay it often, but the obstructions are
removed by willing hands, and on again the
train dashes. Many persons who have been

ONWARD AND UPWARD. 241

led off by some spur track into the woods,
are delayed in getting back to the main line.
One of the worst places along the road to
delay passengers, is a place called " Vanity
Fair," a town near Self Conceit. Millions
of passengers are so taken up with the
attractions of that town that they remain
there a long time. A traveler named Buny an
once visited that place and "wrote it up" in
order to warn passengers against stopping
there, but the warning only helped to adver-
tise the place all the more.

Mystics, cast your eye back along the
track as it traversed the forests of the Car-
boniferous, or the dark morasses of the
Triassic. All along the way you have seen
the passengers of all grades departing from,
the straight line and running off. You
have seen the results, as shown in our charts,,
where innumerable life forms left the line,,
never to return to it. See that vou are not
like they, but capable of sticking to the
main line through storm and tempest,
although assailed by every device of ignor-

242 EVOLUTIONISM.

ance and all the attractions of gilded vice.

THE GREAT LAW OF LIFE.

It is not to be wondered at that in and
during the " childhood of races," men should
be puzzled over the great secret of life.
Knowing'nothing, or next to nothing, regard-
ing the great secret of the universe, evolu-
tion, they were naturally thrown back upon
the assumed theory of special creations. Not
possessing the u golden key," they failed
utterly to unlock the secrets of nature. In-
tuitively they believed in a future state of
existence, but that existence was filled with
the most wonderful and grotesque mass of
absurdities which could be conceived. Gods
and devils, hells and heavens, brimstone and
fire, winged angels and cherubims, all with
no visible means of support, peopled the
unknown and illimitable space about us.
The "bottomless pit" was well named, for
it, like the entire system of fables, was
"bottomless" indeed. Poor man! How
thou hast tortured thyself in thy ignorance.
And to-day, in this enlightened XIX Cen-

ONWARD AND UPWARD. 243

tury, how much better is man's condition?
Some better, for the work of evolution has
been going on steadily. Civilized man has
discarded the gods of stone and wood, before
which he formerly gashed and tortured his
poor flesh, and has set up a great tyrant in
the high heavens for his worship. Do you
know why? Simply that in the course of
mind evolution, intelligence arrived at a
point where almost anybody could point out
the utter absurdity of a stone god being of
any use. The next stage of progress, large
numbers of potent gods ruled the world.
This was during the Grecian period. It took
a very smart man in those days to even remem-
ber a small percentage of the gods' names.
Finally this got too transparent and men
could see the absurdities of the system. So
great Jove and all his contemporary gods
and goddesses were dethroned from the
heavens and the Jewish Elohim took the
power. But, in time, this cruel being began
to change, to evolute. At first he was only
"above all other gods." He was the "God

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ONWARD AND UPWARD.

245

needs of tlie next any more than the stage-
coach of sixty years ago could fill the needs
of to-day. The heaven believed in to-day
would be useless as a place of happiness a
thousand years hence.

But there is one God and one heaven
which will suit the people of a thousand
years hence, or ten thousand years ahead,
on this planet or on another. One religion
which will be the same to-morrow and for-
ever. That God is the infinite intelligence
of the universe, Om. That heaven is the
future state of constant progression to all
eternity.

That religion is the scientific truth of the
ages, which is true here and everywhere,
which vibrates like the light waves, from
planet to planet, from star to star, from
cluster to cluster throughout the universe;
The Religion of the Stars.

** *

n^cfcs.

SOME REMARKS REGARDING THIS ANCIENT ORDER.

5 order of the Magi is the oldest
secret society in existence.
Members of this society, from
kingdom of Atlantis, were the
nders of Egyptian Mysticism

i the instigators of the first

grand monument to the stars, the great
pyramid of Cheops. This pyramid was

EVOLUTIONISM. 247

calculated and built under the auspices of
the astronomers of the Mystic Brotherhood.
Other pyramids were constructed later, by
various kings, simply in imitation of the
first.

The secrets of the Brotherhood have been
handed down from one sworn member to
another, and the time waited for when the
earth should again arrive, by evolution, to
the point where the work could be rein-
stated.

Science, alone, has always awakened the
bitter antagonism of the champions of super-
stition. But, when mystic philosophy and
religion are also coupled with science, we
cannot expect anything but the most terri-
ble opposition. Events have fully justified
this view; for, advanced as the XIX Century
is, we realize that humanity is hardly pre-
pared for mystic truth.

Enemies arise on every hand. Friends
betray, and many violate the most solemn
obligations, under the maligne influences
about them. One hundred years ago death

EVOLUTIONISM. 249

would have been the portion of the teacher
of mystic philosophy. To-day we have
evoluted some, for bitter enmity and treach-
ery, falsehood and vituperation are about
all we need expect.

MAGIC TRIANGLE FROM MYSTIC TEST BOOK.

The Order of the Magi is so called from

the fact that it is devoted to study, not of

miracles, but of real magic and occult laws.

250

EVOLUTIONISM.

White magic, or " Innocent Magic," is
that which has no malicious intent and is
not designed to injure others, or the one
who practices it. The study embraces
numerous lines of thought. It deals in the
marvels of numbers, geometry and the
spirits of numbers. It deals in mystic
squares, triangles, crosses and various
phenomenal illustrations which exhibit
wonders in figures.

TAROT CHART FROM MYSTIC TEST BOOK.

EVOLUTIONISM. 25*

Among other wonders on our planet we
have the " little book," called the Test Book,
which is known to out-siders under the
modern name of playing cards. This, in
itself, is a marvel of magic, co-ordinating as
it does with the numerical relations between
man and the solar system. This is all
explained in the work called the Mystic
Test Book.

THE CHART OF XIX CENTURY FACES.

In this chart we have men and women of
all sorts of professions and ranks in life —
princes, presidents, printers, dukes, million-
aires, hotel clerks, athletes, writers, speakers,
preachers, reformers, ladies of society, polit-
ical leaders, and many others. They are
mixed together in one view as a fair record
of the people of to-day. I wonder how many
of them you can name from the pictured
faces.

Another branch is the "Cabala of Magic,"
which is a tremendous department by itself.
This deals in the magical properties of
names in combination, together with certain

253 EVOLUTIONISM.

sentences of importance. The revelations
by means of the Cabala are wonderful. We
give a few specimens of the charts used in
the various lines. Of course, astrology,
being an occult science, it has always been
held in high repute by the Magi. But it,
like everything else, is regarded by them
as simply an expression of the natural law.
Unless all the universe is a miracle, we
recognize no such thing.

We believe that all scientific truth is a
part of the true religion; that natural
science lays the foundation, while occult
science leads us up into the unseen or spir-
itual universe. We believe in goodness,
purity, kindness, love, harmony and charity.
Peace on earth and in heaven and good will
to all.

I I

RELIGION OF THE STARS.

By O. H. Richmond.

Containing nineteen Temple Lectures as
delivered before classes of advancement. An
introduction and key to the hidden knowl-
edge.

Embracing such subjects as Astral Mag-
netism, Evolution of Matter, Evolution of
the Soul, Magic Wonders, Governing Forces,
The Re-incarnation of Astral Energies,
Infinity, Vibrations and the Laws Governing
Vibratory Energies.

This work speaks in plain language direct
to the inner man. It is the delight of deep
thinkers and a consolation and help to
thousands who hardly have a chance to study
deeply into the universal laws governing
mankind.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

The followers of Mr. Richmond are mostly thinking men
and women who delight in the lectures ot' Ingersoll and the
writings of Paine, Spencer and Mathew Arnold, who have
revolted from existing creeds — Buffalo Express.

The Religion of The Stars. — This wonderful occult
book is filled to overflowing with knowledge that all seekers
and mystics should be in possession of. — Notes and Quei'ies.

Recent edition now on sale. Price $1.25.
Address, O. H. Richmond,

Chicago, 111.

THE MYSTIC TEST BOOK;

OR THE TCHOIC OF THE CARDS,

By O. H. RICHMOND.

This work is the only one in print which
gives the true use of and meanings under
all conditions of the ancient mystic emblems
known to moderns, under the name of
Playing Cards. It shows that they are
astrological and astronomical emblems in-
vented by the ancients.

The wonderful sacred triangle, crosses and
other mystic emblems are fully illustrated,
together with the marvelous tarot squares,
or magic square of the ancients, and the laws
governing same. All profusely illustrated.

Every person in the land who appreciates
the mystical in nature should own a copy of
this book. To simply read it is not the
thing, as it contains a life-long study — 320
large pages, bound in morocco, gold edges,
side and back. In every respect a book of
marvels and a work to be proud of. Price
$5 per copy. Sent by express or mail
prepaid. Large circular sent on receipt of
stamp. Address,

O. H. Richmond,

Chicago, 111.

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Full text of "Evolutionism. A series of illustrated chart lectures upon the evolution of all things in the universe. From atoms to worlds, from atoms to souls"

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